Therefore these tears
by kiku65
Summary: Carson really should remember why he doesn’t like to travel offworld. When a misunderstanding threatens his freedom, he finds out why no-one goes outside after dark... Rated for safety, Carsonwhump and angst abound
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: If I owned it, the cat would steal it.

Summery: Carson really should remember why he doesn't like to travel offworld. When a misunderstanding threatens his freedom, he finds out why no-one goes outside after dark... _Loosely_ inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft Story _The Doom That Came To Sarnath_. No slash.

Spoilers: Everything up to Sateda, just to be safe. Takes place soon after that episode.

WARNING: Might squick in some places and Carson gets pretty thoroughly whumped. Having a bucket handy might be useful. Also contains much angst (hey, it's _me_!)

o.O.o

It had started innocently enough.

Post-mission checks had been done – naturally. Apart from Ronon, who looked every inch a man who had tried to fight hand-to-hand with a Wraith leader, the worst that the rest of them had had was a few stone-scrapes and bruises from helter-skelter driving with bombs trailing behind, maybe a few scratches from stone shrapnel cut by ricocheting bullets. Nothing a few tubs of antiseptic cream and plasters couldn't cure.

They had gathered together, sat down on the beds, let blood be drawn and wounds treated. Carson had had to be forcibly stopped from helping Ronon, who was rushed into the scanner room to check for broken bones and organs.

Then Colonel Sheppard had sneezed.

o.O.o

Antibiotics had no effect. Painkillers lessened the headache, but did nothing for the congestion or the rocketing temperature. Soon the scarlet blooms of rosy fever-patches had appeared.

_Ring around the roses. _

Carson would have been the first to admit that life really did not cut the colonel any breaks. If life had been fair any man who had bullied and pleaded and outright out-stubborned his superiors into rescuing a member of his team, then fought his way through twenty-one Wraith in order to provide the same team member with a chance of revenge and maybe – just maybe – a chance at healing should by all rights have been on easy street for at least a week.

No.

Barely a day after said mission, and both the colonel and Teyla were in the infirmary, and Rodney had complained of chest aches. Not that that was unusual, but this time Carson had heard a faint wet sound at the other end of the stethoscope, and had told him to go and lie down. Carson himself was apparently immune, and had donated a lot of blood into finding the cure.

Haling and the Athosians had visited yesterday, on the second day of Teyla's sickness. They had brought candles and prayed to the Ancestors for the sick to recover, then left flowers on the tables as they went out.

_Pocket full of posies. _

Ronon, through the mists of sedative and hazy-headed pain, had ordered the armour he had worn to be burnt before he had finally succumbed to sleep. No-one had asked why. Carson hoped he never had to find out.

_Ashes, ashes. _

One of the technicians had fallen ill this morning, then two of the nurses, a crewman from the _Daedalus_, a marine who had escorted them to the infirmary...Teyla, Rodney, Sheppard. Ronon.

_We all fall down_

All four were now laying still, three ruby-cheeked with too-bright eyes vivid as stars backed by blood. Their temperatures still soared, but Sheppard had hit his limit only minutes before. It might be a good sign. Maybe.

He was tired. He knew he stank; no time for a shower in all the rush to cure the sick and prevent the disease from spreading. He knew he had to look dreadful; two cups of coffee and a biscuit brought in by Doctor Weir yesterday wouldn't have been nearly enough to get him through a normal day, and he hadn't slept since Sateda.

Carson snorted, ignoring the stares from the orderlies. Normal days in the Pegasus Galaxy were a joke. _This_ was a normal day – bloody insanity leading to hectic activity and worry. He should be thankful no-one was shape-shifting or trying to attack his staff.

"Dr Beckett?" The nurse spoke softly, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Jenny, wasn't that her name? He had a cousin called Jenny. "Miss Emmagen's temperature just peaked. She's cooling down."

It was permission wrapped in a suggestion; go have a shower and some food. Go sleep.

The first two might happen, but the last would have to wait. Normality in Pegasus was blood, bruises, sickness and broken bones... and nightmares.

Ronon had almost died. He had been captured, drugged, sold to the Wraith, dumped on a dead world and hunted for sport. Beaten to within an inch of his life. Then subjected to in-flight surgery as Carson had cut out the tracker from his back on the run, pulling up the squirming mass and stomping on it before Rodney could start to object. It had felt like killing the Wraith again.

_Crunch. _

It had felt good.

No, he didn't feel much like sleep tonight.

o.O.o

He hurt…everywhere. He'd never hurt this much before. Even his _bones_ felt bruised. Warm hands were grasping his gun-hand, pulling it up, and his eyes slammed open at the same time it came _up_ and did _this_ and _this_ and he heard the surprised yelp of the man above him before his left hand came up to smash the other's nose so far into his head it would spear his brain...

"Ronon!"

His hand froze, hovering.

"Doc?"

His vision cleared, showing white walls, white ceiling, a white sheets and a white-faced man in a white coat. His crystal-blue eyes – widened with alarm – were the only colour in the room.

Carson breathed easier as Ronon blinked muzzily and let go. "Feeling better, lad?"

Ronon considered this question. "No."

The doctor wasn't thrown for a minute. "Aye, I can bloody believe that after taking on a Wraith single-handed." His expression showed clearly what he thought of that decision of Ronon's part. "Thanks to your little jaunt you now have three broken ribs, a crack in your collar bone, enough bruises to paint half the city with, a fracture in your upper arm and lacerations along most of your skin. Not to mention that bloody great gash in your leg and a face only your mother could love." His voice was rising on every sentence. "Do ye have any _idea_ how close we came to losing you on the way back? Ye could have _died, _ye great eejit!"

He thought this was a little unfair. "Wasn't _my_ idea, doc."

"Ye coulda let the Colonel shoot that damn thing," Carson snapped. For the first time he noticed the dark smudges under the doctor's eyes, the face that refused to gain colour even when it should be flushed with the heat of his rage. Typical healer, putting others before themselves...

His thoughts flashed back to another infirmary, eight years ago. _Always taking care of others, no concern to spare for themselves..._

"Ronon?"

He shook himself, aware by the worried tone that he must have glazed over. "I'm alright now, doc. Go get some rest." _Lot's_ of rest, he added silently. He wasn't about to lose another healer to their own values. He'd had _enough_ of losing people.

"Ye bloody not..." Carson saw the look on Ronon's face and sighed. "If I go and lie down for a bit will you promise me you'll go back to sleep?"

"Sure," he said.

"Okay then, I'll go," Carson replied.

In the manner of friends and healers, they both lied.

o.O.o

It was official; his friends were going to live.

Carson knew he should be happy; instead he just felt bone-tired. Jenny had bullied him out of the infirmary and into his quarters, practically dragging him away from his office despite frequent protests that he had to get on with his work. The lass had learned how to bully from the best, but her teacher was far too annoyed to appreciate her at that moment.

Now he lay on his back, boots and socks off, on top of the blankets of his bed, staring straight up. The sun outside was setting, throwing streaks of red and orange and pink over the ceiling, sky-paint smeared by childish hands.

There were no children here. Not just in Atlantis (and he missed that in a way; he had always been good with children), but _anywhere_. Pegasus killed childhood; it strangled it away with ritual sacrifice and Wraith cullings, so the children he saw brought to him or gathered in muddy villages on shivering worlds looked at him with too-old eyes and spoke dully of pain and death.

Pegasus killed innocence. Even grown-ups fell prey to it. Ford had been the first but not the last. Or maybe he _hadn't_ been the first, because it hadn't taken long for Carson's virtuousness to be tossed aside, and Perna had paid the price for that.

_First, Do No Harm. _What a joke that had been after Hoff! Steve had died in a cage somewhere in the bowels of that planet, only to be cut open to serve his killers after death, and more than half the planet had followed him to the darkness afterwards.

Carson had wondered blackly at the time if the Wraith was extracting some form of revenge from beyond the grave – or the ashes, since he had been burnt as soon as they were finished with him.

_Ashes, ashes. _

He had told himself at the time that Steve had died for a reason; that he shouldn't feel guilty over a _Wraith_. Steve certainly would have had no qualms about killing any of them, had in fact threatened each and every person in Atlantis with death. So he shouldn't feel guilty.

Then Perna had died.

_All fall down. _

Hoff had followed soon after.

He rolled on his side, feeling sick. Strange that after all that killing the Wraith on Sateda should affect him so. His first kill...

_Not the first._

His mind sniggered, pointing at the blood on his hands.

_Never the first._

His hindbrain whispered his guilt over tracks worn smooth in two years of sorrow.

_You killed long before now, Dr Beckett. _

Lately it had started to sound like Michael.

Steve. Merell. Perna. Millions of people on Hoff he had never met and never would. The healthy, the sick, the guilty, the innocent, the old, the _children_...

Elia.

_How did it feel to kill children, Dr Beckett? Did you feel proud? _

The Wraith-humans he had created the retrovirus to change.

_And killed. _

No! He had tried to save them...

_You let Sheppard plant the bomb. _

He had objected.

_You didn't stop him. _

He had tried to prevent the bombardment...

_Don't pretend you care, Dr Beckett. The dead are dead._

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the darkness.

_They were Wraith, Dr Beckett. They knew that sorry was _just_ a word. _

"I didn't mean tae..."

Michael laughed at him.

He slipped and fell into restless sleep, where white hands pulled him down and in the distance he could hear children crying.

o.O.o

Food was better than showering. The warm water had made him feel sleepy, but the hot tea and plate of scrambled eggs (not a patch on his mum's) had woken him up again, so now he felt a little more human and ready to work.

The infirmary was packed. The bug was no plague, had only touched a fraction of the population thanks to the inoculations. The rest – mostly crewmembers of the _Daedalus_ and the team that had greeted them on arrival home – were all lined up sweating and shaking, or silent and scared with needle-pricks in their arms. It looked as though the bug was outwardly nasty but inwardly relatively gentle, which he had been too sceptical to expect here but had hoped for nonetheless.

Rodney was awake, as was Sheppard. Teyla was asleep, but it was a natural sleep, chosen and enjoyed.

Carson envied her.

Ronon was wide awake and kicking – literally. The Satedan avoided the infirmary even more than Sheppard, and was persuading Jenny the nurse that no, thank you; he didn't have the blood to spare for another donation, and would quite like to go back to his quarters now. The doctor glared at him until he grumbled slightly and let her draw the sample with bad humour, before lying back to sulk on the crisp white sheets.

He'd suggest Ronon stayed in another day or so to be on the safe side. Carson gave him two, maybe three hours before he managed to bully the infirmary staff into letting him go early, and the ex-Runner would feel all the better for having outwitted his persecutors.

Positive thinking was very important.

"Doc!" Sheppard diverted his permanent affable grin away from one of the giggling nurses to Carson. "You're looking... well."

Rodney muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Liar." Carson fixed a smile on his face.

"Oh aye, the wee buggers seem to have passed me over."

"Too scared to bother a Wraith-killer," commented Rodney snidely. Carson tried not to mind when Jenny coughed out a laugh behind him and hurried away.

_He's sick. He doesn't know what he's saying. _

Another, less charitable part of him mumbled _Rodney always bloody well knows what he says_.

Sheppard read his face and shot Rodney a look full of lemons and bee stings, before smiling again. He patted the head of the chair beside him, wedged between their two beds, and raised an eyebrow.

_Come and join us_, it said. _You have something better to do?_

He had many things to do. People were sick. Reports had to be written. The virus had to be studied. He had a hundred and one things to do, and a hundred more things to forget while doing them.

He went to the chair and sat down.

o.O.o

"It's Rugby."

"Football."

"Rugby."

"Football."

"Rugby."

"Football."

"_Rugby_," Carson snapped, inwardly glad to have something to shout about that wouldn't result in an embarrassing breakdown or words best left to silence. "Named after _Rugby_ School, played there for over one hundred years before a set of formal rules were written down in 1845!"

Sheppard's expression was pure stubbornness and a hint of the devil rolled into one. "It's football. You kick the ball over the posts with your foot."

"It's bloody _Rugby_, and incidentally football is _football_ and not _soccer_."

"'Course it is. You sock it one."

"I wish I could sock you two one," muttered Rodney from the other side. He had browbeaten Jenny into getting his laptop, and was now supremely ignoring them both. Teyla had escaped with Ronon long ago, the shared look between them plainly speaking of a long, _long_ lunch in the mess hall before they came back.

"That's the biggest load of rubbish I've ever–"

"Dr Beckett?"

Lorne was hovering in the infirmary doorway, watching the scene before him with a mix of amusement and disbelief. Rodney waved sarcastically.

"Welcome, Major, to the sixth circle of hell."

"Third," said Sheppard absently.

Carson blinked. "Pardon, lad?"

"It's the third that's reserved for gluttons. The sixth is for heretics."

"I always thought the sixth was for adulterers."

"Nope. That's number eight."

"I'm not a glutton," Rodney objected. Both men turned to stare at him, and then looked at each other.

"Third circle," said Sheppard confidently.

Lorne coughed, gracing them all with a flat look, before focusing back on Carson. He saw with concern the sweat sheeting down the man's face, and made a mental note to drag him willing or unwilling in for a check-up this evening.

Lorne's next words put paid to that idea in an instant.

"Dr Weir wants to see you."

o.O.o

Life was unfair.

You had good bits, to be sure. Bits of joking with his staff, bits of sparring with Rodney, bits of nights spent with a glass of smuggled whiskey and his mum's best-made sponge cake. They came and went, so all you could remember afterwards was the sound of laughter and the taste of butter and sugar on your tongue. Those bits flashed by in an instant when they happened, felt like seconds.

But you also had the bad bits. He would have been the first to admit to having bad bits, bits of Perna smiling and hugging him after their 'miracle' cure, bits of Elia begging to be human and menacing Rodney, bits of restraints around his wrists and stabbing pains as his mind was torn open. _Those_ bits ran into each other and stretched while they happened, so they felt like eternity.

It was unfair, therefore, bloody unfair, that right after one bad bit he should fall immediately into another, slap-bang into five days of worry and fuss, with three more of entertaining three bored adults and sleepless nights caused by a who-knew-what bug, the Sateda equivalent of measles and flu mixed up into a chic little Pegasus bundle.

And, Carson thought gloomily, it was bloody, _bloody_ unfair that _he_ had not been the one to catch it.

"Ye want me tae do _what_?"

Elizabeth looked uncomfortable, and he felt guilty for yelling. But honestly, who wouldn't after a request like that?

"I'm sorry, Carson, but Lorne's team apparently spoke very highly of you while on P7X-323, and they want to see the healer he boasted about." To her credit she did look apologetic, not that he cared right then. "It's only for a while..."

"Two days!"

"... And from what I've heard they are very chivalrous, formal people..."

"... So I won't fit in at all!"

"_Carson_." The word had steel in it. "The Erusians asked, very politely, if they could meet you, and I said yes."

"Without bothering to consult me about it first," he snapped. "Lass, I'm up tae my ears in work, I've got Rodney and Sheppard making the life of my staff a living hell, Ronon's still refusing tae let anyone come near him and where, in all this, do I need my molecules pulled apart and reassembled in order tae waste two days bowing and scraping to _Sassenach_?"

Elizabeth plainly didn't understand what he was calling the inhabitants of the new planet, but she got the gist.

"Dr Keller is well able to take care of your patients while you are gone," she said with a hint of coolness. "In fact, she was the one who persuaded me to let you go. Along with several others."

She shifted behind her desk, placing her elbows on the table and speaking softly but determinedly.

"They say you haven't been sleeping. That you spend all of your time working. That they have to force you to leave in order to eat. Carson –" and now her voice was gentle "– they're worried about you."

_I'm_ worried me, Carson thought. His accent thickened with upset.

"I havenae got the _time_..."

"We will make time," Elizabeth said firmly. "Dr Zelenka will also be going; there were high energy readings recorded on the first excursion that our scientists want to check out. We wanted to send Rodney, but..."

"Aye, I know," he sighed. "Rodney couldn't scan for butterflies at the moment."

"Normally I would keep you here," she said, her eyes begging him to believe her, "but they _insisted_ on being able to meet you. It was one of the sticking points in the deal. They wouldn't let an offworlder – particularly one they had never met before – explore their city without a favour in return."

"And that 'favour' would be me?" She nodded. "Eliza– Dr Weir, I'm the _CMO_ of this base... not a bloody bag o' sweets at a children's party!"

Using her title had been a mistake. Quite probably, so had the swearing. He saw her face go stiff and knew he had lost.

"If we loose this deal, we will loose a year's supply of food as well as another possible power source, which you must be aware we sorely need right now," she said coldly. "While it is well within your rights to refuse, I'm sure you wouldn't want to be regarded as the man who lost us that. Carson?"

That was low. He swallowed the bitterness in his throat and nodded.

She started to shuffle her papers, keeping her face turned away from his. "Lorne's team leaves in an hour. I will expect you to be there. You might want to start packing."

Without a word, Carson turned on his heel and left.


	2. Chapter 2

This was actually posted in a _"Oh shit I need to update_!" moment, so apologies if it contains errors of any sort. Cookies of chocolate chunks and jelly beans (I have weird tastes) for all reviewers.

* * *

"_Atishoo!"_

Colonel Sheppard sniffed and scowled at the doctor, his face a red-stained, streaming testament to both the tenacity of germs and mankind's vulnerability to the small and wriggly. On the bed next door Rodney was harassing a nurse, normally something Carson would have stopped if he hadn't been sunk in his own little puddle of misery.

Perversely, Ronon – despite injuries that Carson would have fully expected to kill a brace of grizzly bears – had not only recovered from his encounter but had so far avoided the attentions of the microbes. Possibly, Carson mused, they had been too scared to bother him. Currently he was hiding in his room from an attack of the doctors.

"_Atishoo!"_ Sheppard spat up a wad of mucus, promptly wiping it away surreptitiously with the sleeve of his scrubs.

Rodney pulled a face. "Oh jeez, Sheppard, hack up your bodily fluids somewhere _else_ would you?"

The colonel gave him a shaky glower, muscles twitching as though being pulled by a drunken puppeteer. "You can lend your sleeve if you're volunteering, _McKay_."

"I was thinking more alone the lines of corks," Rodney said nastily as Carson dug into his pockets for a hankie. "No more gunk and no more complaining. One of those two-birds-with-one-stone scenarios."

Carson extracted a packet of tissues and wordlessly handed them over, as Sheppard retorted, "With _you_ they'd have to put the plugs further down, since you're obviously talking out of your –"

"No-one's talking out of anything if they carry on like this," Carson snapped, and such was the brittle edge of his voice that both men momentarily shut up. Until Sheppard decided to open his mouth again.

"Do-oc..."

"No," he said shortly. "You're sick. You're _not_ going."

"It's _nothing_," Sheppard said nasally, with a grimace that belayed the words. "Honestly, doc..."

"... You feel fine; you're fed up with sponge-baths and being ogled by pretty nurses and you want to visit the nice stone-age people on P7X-who-the-hell-cares, where you will undoubtedly Kirk their High Priestess and get drunk on whatever they like to get high with," sing-songed Rodney. "Meanwhile your comrades with bravely suffer on..."

At this point Sheppard bombarded him with soggy tissues, making him squeak and dive beneath the covers. Carson tried not to think about said stone-age people as he cut short their antics, wishing desperately that his Hippocratic Oath didn't prevent him from taking Sheppard's word for it, or at the very least strangling them both.

"_Settle down_!" he bellowed finally, making them both jump. For a moment he felt like a primary school teacher trying to control two rowdy six-year-olds. "Honestly, you're acting like a pair of wee babies! _Both_ of ye are going tae stay and get better, or so help me I'm going tae get out my biggest needle and –"

At this point, perhaps luckily, Jenny appeared and tugged at his elbow, whispering "Major Lorne is waiting outside." He saw if not heard the giggle inherent in that sentence, and remembered vaguely that she had had a crush on the soldier not so long ago.

"Thanks, lass." He brushed her away gently, before fixing Sheppard and Rodney with a hard stare.

"Needles!" he whispered harshly, before stamping off towards the door.

Both men gaped after him as he left. Sheppard broke the spell with a loud sneeze, moping up the aftermath with a sodden tissue.

"Kinda scary when he's mad, isn't he?" he said as he emerged.

Rodney shrugged, turning back to his laptop. "You know, he reminds me of a teacher I had once in second grade."

"Serious?"

"He was scary as well."

The Colonel sneezed again, and then sniffed.

"Well, I don't care what he says."

"Hm?" Rodney wasn't really listening.

"It's football, not rugby."

o.O.o

"Chevron One dialled."

SGA-3 had assembled in front of the Stargate; Lorne, Zelenka, Doyle, Owens, and Desjardin, the last two new since their predecessors vacation in the infirmary. Both had arrived only last week on the _Daedalus_.

"Chevron Two dialled."

Carson tagged along near the back like an afterthought, hands gripping a scruffy overnight back and medical kit that weighed almost as much as he did along with a P90 he had no intention of using.

"Chevron Three dialled."

He shuffled his feet as the chevrons clicked open, and glanced over at the newbies. They were young, pink-cheeked, neither looking old enough to buy alcohol in their home states – Texas and Maine respectively. He had gone over their medical files once, and so knew that Owens had a minor dust allergy.

"Chevron Four dialled."

A dust allergy, and slight hayfever. He had a moon-shaped face and hair cut to dark fuzz, almost as though someone had sprinkled brown sugar on an upturned mixing bowl. His grip on his P90 was even more awkward than Carson's.

"Chevron Five dialled."

Desjardin's buzz-cut hair was yellow, like a field of harvested straw, and he was slightly taller, all elbows and knees. He had a five-o'clock shadow starting to sprout, a few shades darker than his hair, and the way he fidgeted and shared a glance with his fellow newbie plainly said how nervous he was.

"Chevron six dialled."

Neither of them had ever been offworld before. Neither of them had faced a Wraith, seen a Dart scream overhead, fought Genii or placated angry natives. Probably they didn't even know what an Ancient was, or why they were there, or why they were going through the Stargate at all.

"Chevron seven dialled."

_Theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do and die. _

They would die somewhere, on some nameless planet, shot or Wraith-sucked, their dog tags sent home to a grieving family who would likely never know, any more than their loved one's had, why they had to die. In Carson's bleak mood, he could almost see it happening; the surprise, the death, the clink of the tags on Sheppard's desk, the typing of the letter, and the tears as it was opened.

"SGA-3, you are good to go."

He pulled himself together as the Stargate blasted to life and shimmered blue, tempting the brave and foolish onwards.

_Goodness knows, I'm not brave_, he thought as he plodded up towards the 'gate. _Must just be a bloody fool, then. _

"Dr Beckett!" Lorne sounded annoyed, and no wonder; while Carson had been wool-gathering the rest of the team had already gone through. Only the Major was still on Atlantis. "Get a move on!"

He nodded hastily, and stepped through.

o.O.o

Carson emerged into sunlight.

Erusia was warmer than Lantia, and appeared to be either at the end of its summer or the beginning of its autumn. In any case as he looked around he saw that the grass around the 'gate was tinged with yellow, the sky a brilliant blue. Fruit trees had been planted in a circle around the 'gate, branches pulled down almost to ground level by knobbly purple fruits that smelt faintly of melons. Faint gold pollen was hanging in the air and dusting the leaves.

A group of humans in ornate but practical clothing were waiting for them. Apparently they were familiar with Lorne and his team, because the leader – a moustachioed middle-aged man wearing a grey cloak trimmed with red – didn't draw the elaborate dagger hanging at his side, but instead smiled and bowed, murmuring a greeting. Lorne nodded stiffly in return.

The others didn't lower their own weapons, but then none of the Lantians had expected them to; all were armoured with lacquered green breastplates and leather-padded metal kilts, with greaves protecting their lower legs. In the manner of soldiers everywhere they were wary, but not overly so. Carson noticed that Owens and Desjardin were eyeing them, and especially the efficient-looking crossbows, with a sort of fascinated horror. Zelenka seemed unfazed.

The cloaked man drew up from his bow and glanced over the rest of the team, his smile widening as he caught sight of Carson. He immediately signalled for the soldiers to spread out and form an escort, leaving SGA-3 huddled somewhat nervously in the middle.

"Holy shit," he heard Owens mutter as they set off down the road cutting through the orchard. "Have you seen the swords they're carrying?"

Desjardin had, and so had Carson. The hideous things were so jagged and notched with saw-blades and hooks that he was avoiding the sight of them by staring between Lorne's shoulder blades. Behind him, Doyle hissed at the two to remain quiet.

_They're friendly_, he told himself. _Lorne's team have visited three times already without anything going wrong. The only way I can get hurt is through terminal boredom. _

The road widened at the bottom, flaring out to reveal a pair of cart with two split-hoofed deer-like animals with thick hair crests and two-tone dapples in the traces that Carson recognised from the mission reports as _katarung_. Lorne and Sergeant Doyle were taken to the front along with the cloaked man and three of the soldiers, the other four hustling Zelenka, Carson and the two newbies into the rear. He saw Lorne glance back and say something sharp.

The cloaked man raised an eyebrow, but gestured imperiously to one of the soldiers, who in turn grasped the two doctors by the elbow and steered them gently but firmly up to the top. He was so stunned he forgot to even protest as they were deposited in front of the two men and left to gape at them helplessly.

Lorne looked less than pleased at the cavalier treatment of his trustees, but he kept his peace. The other nodded pleasantly and stepped onto the cart, waiting for them to follow before signalling at the hustler to start.

Carson found himself wedged between two of the soldiers and opposite the cloaked man, who was regarding him with interest. He gripped his medical bag tightly and tried to stay calm.

_I'm acting like a complete jessie_, he told himself as the pollen fell down like golden rain from the trees around them._ I can't start panicking because of a few soldiers after being taken apart and reassembled in a wormhole. It's _ridiculous

The cloaked man stretched out his legs in front of him as the cart rattled on, eyeing Carson all the while. Finally he spoke, and pointed.

"What do you store in there?"

He was pointing at the medical bag. Carson swallowed and tried to sound casual.

"Oh, a few wee things I like tae keep with me. Just in case I need them."

He certainly didn't feel like explaining the use of everything he carried, even if he thought the man would understand a word. For a moment he missed Rodney, almost hearing the scientist's sarcastic reply. Probably something along the lines of _it's none of your business what he keep in there, even if your prehistoric brain could grasp at the idea of something like penicillin..._

Another question jolted him out of this pleasant dream. "You are a healer?"

"A doctor, yes."

"Are you as adept at your profession as Major Lorne claims?"

"I'd like to think so," he said cautiously, before deciding to ask some questions of his own. "If I might ask, what should I call you by?"

This startled the man, making him flick a glance to where Lorne was deep in conversation with his sergeant, Zelenka admiring the view with a determined cheerfulness. Eventually he turned back with a raised eyebrow.

"It appears you _may_ ask. I am Pender Bre-Lya, First Speaker of the Exarch Narforen Mal-Rya. You may address me as First Speaker."

With that he leant back and resumed his silent study of the doctor, a contemplative expression on his face.

"Charming," Carson muttered under his breath.

The cart rattled on.

o.O.o

"We are almost at the lake."

Silence having reigned for almost an hour previously, this unexpected statement made Carson jump. First Speaker Pender Bre-Lya was staring straight ahead over the shoulder of their driver in anticipation, his lofty manner lessened slightly.

Lorne looked relieved but unsurprised; Carson remembered that he had made two previous trips to the planet and had undoubtedly seen the lake before. He whispered a question to the major.

"Are we stopping by the lake, then? Is the city there?"

Pender laughed and looked back at them, answering for them both. "Yes, Healer Beckett, you will see the city of Aru-Moenia when we reach the top of the hill." His aloofness had vanished, to be replaced with a patronising friendliness. "But no, we will not stop by the lake. It is too close to sunset."

Encouraged by the man's change of character, Carson smiled and tried to make conversation. "'Tis a real pity, that. I always did like to picnic by the loch near us at home."

The First Speaker gave a condescending smile. "I'm sure. But I doubt your lakes are very much like ours."

Carson was about to ask what he meant when the cart crested the hill.

His first impression was of a great strip of pale grey; mountains in the south that showed up hazily in the soft light. A glitter of gold and white formed in a circle was at their base, sharp towers stabbing up at the sky, a trail of black ant-like figures scurrying up and down the long highway leading through it. Between the city and the cart was a vast expanse of vivid blue-green, broken with white waves. It looked as though it had been dropped straight from a fairy-tale.

Then he recognised the sheer _size_ of it; stretching from the left and a hazy waterfall big enough to swallow the Niagara twice over, but so far away not whisper of it was heard, to the right, where through the pollen-dusted trees he could see a snaky river winding its way eastwards, chained to the ground by a bridge and a dusty road they would soon join. He frowned.

"Pardon me for askin', but wouldn't it be quicker to simply ferry across the lake?"

Now that he mentioned it, he couldn't see any boats on the surface at all. Pender grimaced.

"The lake is not safe. No-one would dare boat on it even in daylight."

"Oh aye? Cross-currents, is it?"

"No." Pender glared at the lake surface as if it offended him and added darkly "pray you do not find out."

He looked straight ahead then, shouting at the driver to hurry.

Carson glanced over at Lorne, who shrugged as they tilted down the hillside. Behind them the other cart had already shaken and rattled to the crest, and surprised cries drifted down through the warm air to them.

"No-one's told us about the danger," he muttered, looking annoyed. Of course, as the team leader he _needed_ to know about any threat to them, and from what Carson knew about the man he would find obstructions to that responsibility extremely grating. "Both of the other two times we talked in an embassy near the outer walls and left before sundown. It was only on the second time that they mentioned the lake was dangerous."

Zelenka joined in, murmuring quietly, "If we carry on at this speed it will take hours for us to reach the city. How far away is sunset?"

"I don't know." Lorne scowled. "I don't like they way they greeted us."

"Was it unusual?" asked Carson, startled.

"The high-and-mighty treatment? No. But I don't like the way they were looking at you. Seemed even higher and mightier than usual, which doesn't make any sense."

Zelenka nodded. "Even in my country, doctors are valued. But here they looked at you as Rodney looks at our apprentices – worse."

"I'm not all that impressive a person," Carson said half-jokingly, his stomach suddenly sinking to his boots.

The Czech shook his head. "I am even less impressive than you, but they treated me as they did Owens and Desjardin – as welcome low-ranking strangers. But they treat _you_ as though you are less than their _vysoká_-animals! What did Dr Weir tell them of us?"

"Only that you were a scientist who worked with us and Carson was our best doctor," Lorne shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they just don't like him."

Zelenka muttered in Czech under his breath, thankfully forgoing a translation. They all fell silent for a while, until eventually Carson became bored enough to play Prime/Not Prime with Zelenka, which he was rubbish at but better than Lorne, who thought it was stupid.

"619."

"Not prime."

"Ha! _Chybná odpověď_! Wrong!"

"Fine, ye bloody... 3405!"

"Not Prime."

"... lucky guess."

Pender followed the conversation with amusement, although Carson was unsure as to whether the First Speaker actually understood what they were doing. If he did not, he didn't ask any questions.

"1033."

"Prime. 361."

"Prime."

"No. 81."

"Not prime."

"Everyone will get lucky in time it seems, Doctor Beckett."

"Cheeky bugger."

"What is the purpose of this?" asked Pender finally. It had already been an hour.

"It is to stave off boredom and quicken minds," Zelenka told him.

"And irritate the military," added Lorne under his breath. Doyle ginned at him.

"You do not appear to be very good at it, healer Beckett," noted Pender.

He tried not to take offence. "Well, I'm not a scientist."

The other smiled. "I have heard this term... _scientist_ before. It is like a scholar, yes?"

"More a mathematician, but yes, it's the same general idea. Although they deal more with numbers than words."

Pender nodded and leant back again, eyes half-slitted against the setting sun.

It took another three hours by Carson's watch to reach the bridge, where green-armoured soldiers were manning a toll booth through which a scatter of people were plodding – most of them making for the city as well. Upon seeing the First Speaker in the front cart they immediately waved both through, something Lorne noted with disgust. As they rattled over the bridge Doyle saw nets in the water and pointed them out.

"Guess whatever it is that's dangerous doesn't like bridges, eh?"

Pender answered him with a trace of frost. "The river is too small for worry. Many make a living by fishing further up its banks. It is only when it reaches seven spans to the lake that men must avoid it, but there are always those who forget or scoff. We do not trouble with those."

"Why not?" asked Lorne suspiciously.

"We do not need to," Pender replied simply. "The lake swallows them."

With one movement, the three Lantians looked westwards. The flat expanse of water glittered innocently at them.

"Sorry I asked," muttered Doyle.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm _sorry_! My computer went pissy and decided it didn't like me, then when I started threatening it with a large mallet (it worked _last_ time...) it threw a strop and shut down until this afternoon. I spent a week watching dust collecting on my black screen and wondering if you were starting to light torches and sharpen your pitchforks...

I try my damndest to reply to reply to all reviews personally, so I hope you all got them. Thanks for the headsup Emma - I listen to McKay too much. I will keep in mind mdeical doctors are still scientists :) On a related note, any offers to beta-read this will be accepted with much grovelling thanks, since grammer has never been a strong point of mine.

Anyway. One with the story (_finally_).

* * *

The road to Aru-Moenia was paved with a coarse, gritty stone flecked with mica and lined with a muddy ditch on either side. As they approached the main gates the flow of people thickened, pressing close to the cart despite shouts from the driver and lows from the katarung. Most gaped openly at the Lantians and soldiers, lowering their gaze respectfully when they saw Pender and hurrying on as much as the crowds would allow. They squeezed together as the gate hemmed them in, swirled around the carts, then spilt into streams down the streets.

Even in the late hour – the sun was starting to touch the top of the waterfall in the west – the noisy clamour was almost overwhelming. Bursts of song, squabbles between hagglers, the creak of wagons and the lowing of animals mingled in the air, interspersed with the screeches of the children that darted under feet and between legs. Most of the citizens were dressed in plain, homespun colours of brown and white, but almost all had some vivid embellishment – a scarlet sash, a brightly-coloured headscarf or a decorated belt. The smell of street cooking made Carson's stomach grumble.

_It's like New York_, he thought as he looked around. He had gone there once on the way to Cheyenne Mountain, although he hadn't enjoyed it much. He preferred the quiet of the countryside.

"Magnificent, is it not?" whispered Pender. Zelenka and Lorne shared a look. Doyle covered his mouth with both hands, his shoulders shaking.

"It's very... nice," said Carson uncertainly.

"Aru-Moenia of the Golden Walls. Greatest of Cities, Jewel of the Plains, Scourge of the Exarches and Provinces." Pender looked almost adoring. "I have travelled for two weeks to the North, South, East, and West, and never seen its equal."

Carefully avoiding the First Speaker's face, Carson instead whispered to Lorne "Isn't Exarch a religious title?"

The major nodded. "All the power here is with the theologians. Narforen leads their church _and_ the military, and from what I've heard his predecessors had a conquering streak. He rules over fifty different cities by now."

"Has anyone asked what they worship?" Carson hissed. "Or _who_? This doesn't look like the Wraith have touched in years!"

Lorne shrugged, but he looked troubled. "We saw some of their ceremonies. It's all Ancient-worship as far as we can tell."

"Not to mention the Wraith would feed on any who tried to bargain with them," Zelenka added. "The energy spikes I have seen recorded might indicate a shield. It's possible that they avoid this place because of that. Perhaps there was a base here once."

"They don't look that sophisticated," said Doyle doubtfully. He was a tall man, with the build of someone who had been constructed instead of born, and muddy brown hair that was permanently curled despite obvious efforts with a razor to shave it flat. "If there was a base here surely they would have started using the equipment by now?"

"No ATA Gene," said Lorne flatly.

"You don't need that for some of–"

Zelenka interrupted. "If there was equipment the Ancients left behind it would most likely have been either broken or valueless."

"Not to mention if there _was_ anything, the priesthood would've nicked it," said Lorne darkly.

Carson wasn't all that relieved. Granted it meant they probably wouldn't be sacrificed to the Wraith, but it did mean there were probably lots of Ancient toys scattered around for Zelenka to push on him. He sighed.

Lorne frowned. "Weir won't let us take their ZPM if that's all that protects them."

"There's still the food," Doyle said.

"Yeah. Maybe."

The citadel loomed above them, white walls gleaming golden in the sunlight. Carson admitted privately to himself that it was very pretty, but he wasn't about to say it out loud. Pender was apparently conceited enough about the city as it was.

They entered through a ring of arches and into a wide courtyard decorated with statues, where the carts stopped. Glad at the end of the journey, Carson jumped out without a second thought, only to be glared at by Pender and all four of the soldiers.

_What now?_

However, nothing was said. Pender turned his back on Carson with supreme disdain, facing Lorne and inviting him through the foremost gateway. The soldiers formed up behind him, gesturing for SG-3 to take their place again in the middle. They trudged forward reluctantly, and he noticed that Owens was walking with a slight limp – probably from a bruise formed by the jolting of the carts. Carson made a note to give the poor boy some painkillers.

A pair of soldiers was guarding the gateway, and they held out their hands as soon as the group drew near.

"Weapons," said one.

None of the Lantians moved.

"It is the law," Pender said after a long pause. "No unauthorised weapons may be in the presence of the Exarch. They will be returned to you."

Reluctantly, and wish admonitions not to try and use them or even touch them more than necessary, the various guns were handed over. Carson was quick to note that none of them had handed in any knives – and he was sure they all had at least one.

He decided that Pender could find that out for himself.

The inside of the citadel was cool, smelling faintly of incense and flowers. Here and there white-robed men and women gathered at the base of pillars to talk, or hurried through echoing corridors with arms full of scrolls. There was a hushed feeling in the air, like that of a cathedral, which Carson thought it greatly resembled.

They were ushered through into a beautifully decorated room hung with tapestries and lined with padded wooden benches carved from a deep purple wood. From the carved ceiling dangled oil lamps that glowed a warm honey-gold, the same colour as the light from the high windows that was swallowed by the scattered royal blue rugs. SGA-3 perched on the seats awkwardly and looked around as Pender left silently.

"_Dobrý vkus_. Very nice," murmured Zelenka. He was studying one of the tapestries, a picture-story showing the conquest of a neighbouring city and subsequent parades. "Good workmanship."

"I was more concerned about the pictures myself," muttered Carson. The detail in the battle scenes was surprisingly graphic, and it was doing nothing for his vague sense of unease.

"Not to mention those poor SOBs they show, of course," said Doyle quietly.

"They were conquered in the time of my father," A deep voice said. They jumped and turned to see a tall, bearded man with iron-grey hair and dressed in robes of gleaming white with purple swirls. Behind him trailed First Speaker Pender.

The robed man smiled gently, dark eyes crinkling. "They practised human sacrifice and drank the blood of those unfortunate enough to fall in their clutches. I doubt they would appreciate your pity, honoured guest."

Doyle went red and looked at the floor. Lorne cleared his throat, rising and bowing stiffly with little skill.

"Exarch Narforen Mal-Rya?"

"I am." It was a statement more than an answer, and said with quiet dignity. Carson felt the knot of tension in his chest ease a little at the man's apparent lack of arrogance, so unlike his First Speaker's. "Welcome to Aru-Moenia, Major Lorne."

"Thank you." Lorne looked a little uncertain, and Carson suspected he was more used to leaving the diplomacy to Elizabeth. He went on into a clearly pre-rehearsed speech. "Our leader Dr Weir passes her compliments and apologies that she could not attend. Unfortunately circumstances beyond her control meant that she had to stay at our city, but she welcomes you as a new ally with open arms."

Narforen chuckled ironically. "But that was the terms of our agreement, was it not?" He saw Zelenka's raised eyebrow, and explained, "I prefer on the whole to deal with military men. My time is not eternal, and professional diplomats tend to waste a great deal of it." He smiled again with a hint of wickedness. "At least with the military our discussions tomorrow will be finished in time for the evening ceremonies."

Carson tried ineffectively to stifle a laugh. His fellow Lantians were equally unsuccessful.

Lorne nodded and laughed as well, seeming a little less tense. "Short and sweet works for us as well. Although Doctor Beckett might delay things a little..."

"Now, where would you get an idea like that, lad?" protested Carson.

"C'mon, doc," Doyle said with a grin. "We'll have to drag you away from the hospitals round here. The guy's got a healing complex," he announced to the room at large.

Narforen's eyes focused on Carson, and went thoughtful. He felt himself squirm slightly under the intense gaze.

"Yes, the healer Beckett. We have heard much about you." The Exarch nodded slowly, still thoughtful. "Much indeed. But come. Sunset approaches. Tomorrow the bargaining begins, but for tonight you are free to roam as you please. Perhaps a tour?"

This was met with general agreement. "Yes, thank you," Lorne said politely.

Narforen smiled, and gestured for them to follow.

o.O.o

Few things manage to be both intimidating and beautiful, but endless hallway in front of them achieved it effortlessly.

"It was built less than a year after the first city wall was constructed." Narforen's voice bounced back from the polished walls, echoing into infinity until they were lost in the vast space beyond. Barely anyone was paying any real attention to him; too busy staring at the walls, which were covered in a series of picture panels in glowing colours, each more vivid and detailed than the last. The Exarch stopped near the entrance, pointing at the section in front of him.

"Here is the discovery of the lake, by my ancestor Ikath Mal."

Carson stepped forward with the others, entranced. Each image was made of thousands of fitted pieces of glass, like a well-made mosaic, and polished to mirror-brightness. The one they were looking at depicted a man with the fair hair and tanned skin of the Erusians looking with amazement over a lagoon flecked with dark spots.

"Then his journey back to our people and their exodus here."

A straggling line of people driving katarung and a strange animal with four forward-pointing horns and green-striped fur in front of them to the lakeside.

Narforen paused in front of the next panel and scowled.

"Our meeting with the natives," he said harshly.

Carson looked at the picture. It showed a clearly older Ikath conversing with scaly beings that reminded him strongly of the twisted, gulping creature Tolkien had made famous, except that these held spears and appeared more inclined to discuss things.

"Then the start of our war with them and their annihilation."

The Lantians barely looked at the next panel – it was large and involved a great deal of red glass – and instead stared at the Exarch. His lined face had grown cold and hard, only his dark eyes reflecting hatred at the lifeless characters.

"Did they attack you?" Lorne asked with a little stiffness. Narforen's mouth twisted sideways before he managed to compose himself, his First Speaker answering for him.

"We struck first. They were abominations, creatures of mixed human and animal linage, and they allied themselves with monsters."

Carson followed Pender's trembling finger to the picture, and saw long sinuous bodies layered with black scales writhing in and out of the carnage. The details were blurred, as though the creator had been shaking with horror as he laid the tiles.

Pender looked away, his face dark. "They were exterminated."

No-one spoke. Carson wanted to ask whether extinction had really been necessary, but one looked at the expressions of the two Erusians put paid to that idea at once.

Humans never changed, not even in Pegasus. The Gollum-creatures – whoever they had been – had probably done nothing worse than inhabit fertile, valuable land that humans with better weapons and greater numbers had wanted for themselves. The fact that they looked like slimy ogres out of nightmares just made things a bit easier for their killers and their killers' descendants. It was always easier to live with your deeds if you managed to persuade yourself they were done to people who were _not really people at all_.

_Like the Goa'uld. Like the Ori. Like the Asurans and the Wraith..._

He had heard it all; he could write down these people's responses without even asking the questions, because he had heard them before, many times, and accepted them.

They would say: They were the Enemy. They would say: We were at War. They would say: It doesn't matter now. They weren't even human. They were not like us.

_Not really people at all_.

Narforen turned away, pacing down to the next panel and showing them the rest of the cities history. Carson shook himself out of his revere and watched without seeing as the Exarch spoke of the laying of the foundation stones, the quarrying of marble and precious gems from the mountain, the building of the first roads that opened up ways to the other city states. It was long, tedious, and fairly predictable to anyone who had studied history, which admittedly was only Carson, and Doyle, who had studied it at college level until dropping out.

"Sir!" It was Doyle, pointing at one of the images about halfway down the display. Carson started out of his train of thought with a jump. "Look!"

Carson saw what he was pointing at and swore. "Oh bloody hell!"

The Lantians hurried over, Lorne whistling under his breath, Zelenka's eyes widening behind his glasses. Owens and Desjardin looked confused, not understanding what they were seeing until the former remembered his recognition training and yelped.

Narforen glided up beside them and nodded amiably. "Yes, that always interests our visitors. Curious, isn't it?"

No-one said a word, but simply stared at the depiction of what was clearly, without a shadow of a doubt, a Wraith ship in flames.

o.O.o

"Have you seen the offworlder healer?"

Ekam carefully folded his clothes and avoided the gaze of the speaker. It was late evening now; the sky had turned a dusky purple speckled with white stars, and it was time for their supper. But Neboum wasn't interested in food.

"Old Asly kept me working in the library all day, but I _know_ you got to go out and Mistress Lana said you were in the market when they came through." Neboum fixed him with a wide-eyed stare. "You _must_ have seen them. They came right through the middle!"

He sighed and turned around. His twin looked back hopefully, greatly resembling a bushden puppy that had seen someone holding a biscuit.

"I saw them," he muttered.

"What are they like?" Neboum was excited, almost hoping from foot to foot. "I never got to see the rest when they came the other two times."

Ekam shrugged. "Tall, pale, dark-haired – like the barbarians from the Southern Ice Sheet. The healer carries a black bag, but he won't open it. The others don't have anything."

"It is the healer that is important." His brother hesitated before carrying on. "Has he–"

"No," said Ekam, suddenly annoyed. "The Exarch's been keeping them busy all day. He didn't do anything –just walked around and talked in that funny voice of his."

"He will do more tomorrow."

"How do you know?" he snapped suddenly. His brother flinched at the sharpness in his voice. "You don't know that. _No-one_ knows that. All that talk about him... it could just be words. He doesn't _look_ special..."

"The offworlders wouldn't lie." Neboum's face was stubborn.

"You don't know that either!"

"They wouldn't. The Exarch..."

"They could be cunning. They could have exaggerated." Ekam sighed inwardly at his brother's stricken face. Exarch Narforen was regarded as infallible, blessed by the gods – all the priesthood were – but he knew from close observation that they were still human, and humans were very fallible indeed. They _both_ knew that.

But Neboum wanted to believe, so badly. He could see his twin's face, so full of fear, desperation, hope. And really, who was he to take that hope away?

"They just said he was a good healer," he muttered finally. "They didn't say anything else – and none of ours have been any help. Not even the best of them."

His brother seemed subdued. "Maybe Carson Beckett will be different."

"Maybe," Ekam agreed half-heartedly. He didn't really think so, but who was he to judge? He was no healer, no scholar. He didn't know what was being asked; just that none of the other healers had been able to do it.

And they _might_ get lucky. Maybe. Possibly.

A knock on the door made them both jump. Captain Jortangi poked his head around and – with his usual frown at the mess – told them both it was time to get back to work, with a nod at Ekam, who was trying to put his clothes away in their cramped chest. Jortangi was well aware of the elder twin's hopes of becoming a soldier, and encouraged him as much as he dared without raising the boy's hopes unnecessarily – and Ekam knew that.

It made him feel a hypocrite. _Both of us hope_, he thought. _And both of us are probably doomed to disappointment. But we still keep hoping. _

Because, in the end, hope was all they had.

o.O.o

They had moved from the gallery to the libraries, then to the Hall of Worship, then back through narrow passageways with lofty, stain-glass windows to the guest areas and a round room scattered with cushions. Narforen had sat on one without hesitation, indicating that the others should do the same.

"Tomorrow the bargaining will be held at a table with high chairs," he explained as food was brought in and laid down in the middle of the circle by servants in grey. The Lantians sat down gingerly. "But for now it is more comfortable to eat like this."

Carson nodded with the others. It boded well that the Exarch placed common sense above pride – so often leaders seemed to do the opposite. He let Lorne do the talking and reached out for the food.

It was simple enough; white, crumbly cheese and brown bread, along with bowls of the strange purple fruit he had seen on the trees around the Stargate and a round confection similar to marzipan. The glasses had been filled with something that looked like green cordial, but tasted syrupy and sweet. He sampled everything with relish, ignoring the small doctor voice inside that warned him about drinking alien concoctions.

Owens had ended up next to him, his upper lip acquiring a green moustache from the refreshment. The Texan didn't seem to mind or let it affect his endeavours to see everything in the immediate area.

"First time offworld?" Carson asked him needlessly.

Owens nodded, still staring around the room. "Only just found out about you guys two weeks ago. Me 'n Peter only just got to SGC when that spaceship arrived saying they needed fresh blood here."

_Fresh blood_. Carson winced at the unfortunate choice of words. _Yes, I expect the Wraith would appreciate that as well. _

As if the marine had plucked his thought from midair, Owens grinned. "We both thought our first'd be tangling with those life-suckers sarge keeps telling us about, but looks like we hit gold here! Good food and lectures on history." His accent changed _history_ to _his'try_. "Pretty sweet."

Carson tried to smile, but he had felt his gut stir uneasily, although that could have just been the food. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone off Atlantis without something dreadful transpiring. Possibly it had never happened.

Owens looked at his white knuckles quizzically. "You all right, doc?"

He forced himself to relax and tried to smile. "Oh, aye lad. Just had a few bad experiences when it comes to travel."

"Yeah, me too." The marine looked thoughtful and a little sad. "Me and my family went to Italy after I graduated, just to celebrate. Had a big slap-up seafood meal in Rome on the last day and guess what happened?"

"What?" Carson asked warily, his mind throwing up pictures of the Mafia or erupting volcanoes.

"Dumbass cook served us out-of-date prawns!" Owens said disgustedly. "Everyone spent the night wedged in the loos chucking up their cookies and crapping, and my Uncle Mark was so sick the aeroplane staff put him next to those closet toilets they have on the jets."

The doctor stared at him for a moment, before starting to hiccup, then chuckle, then laugh out loud. Owens made a face at him as he clutched his sides.

"I don't see what's so funny! Spoiled the whole trip, that did. Uncle Mark used to love fish pie, but now he goes green at the sight of it!" Owens looked momentarily wistful. "Aunt Bobbi did good fish pie."

Carson just shook his head and hiccupped some more.

"She used to do it with cheese and stuff on top," Owens mumbled before brightening up. "Anyway, what's the worst thing that happened to you when you travelled?"

He stopped laughing so suddenly Lorne looked over to their cushions in concern. Where to start? _Well, there was the time I went to a place called Hoff... a girl called Elia... or the place with a tower where someone held a knife to my throat... _

_On a bed in the white tent before fire burnt the camp away. _

_Ronon with a Wraith on top of him about to feed. _

A hand gripped his shoulder and shook him gently, a pale moon-face appearing in his vision. "Doc? You in there?"

No, thought Carson, no he hadn't been. He had been very far away.

He pulled his mouth into a smile that felt as sharp as a Wraith's. "Well, has anyone ever told you about the time I brought someone back to Atlantis?"

"No?" Owens grinned, reassured their good ol' doc wasn't about to freak out or collapse. "C'mon, what happened?"

"Well, there was a man called Lucius an'..." and he proceeded to spin a tale about everyone acting dippy and following Lucius around like puppies, while Owens snorted and called Desjardin over saying _have you heard about this yet, buddy? Aren't we lucky to have been brought here! _

Carson carried on, casting Colonel Sheppard as the brave, cunning protagonist and himself as the bumbling doofus who had needed rescuing from a village baker, because really, it was that easy to believe, wasn't it? John was the hero of their little acts, and he was the one who went around after the work was done and picked up the pieces.

And he was _happy_ with that. He wasn't a hero. Heroes were bold and daring and never woke up at three in the morning after nightmares about friends transforming into bugs and dark woods filled with laughter. Or if they did, they certainly didn't solve the problem with a glass of scotch that he'd be in real trouble over if Elizabeth ever found out about it.

In his less charitable moments – and there had been quite a few lately – Carson often drew a different comparison: heroes got people killed, and he was the one who tried to save them.

_Tried_ being the optimum word here.

"Wow," Desjardin said finally, after the tale had petered out. "Wow-_ee_. I thought it was all going to be, you know –" he waved his hands as if shaping invisible dough "– all guns and shoot-em-up and us valiantly defending Earth from alien destroyers. Not people with happy-juice and colonels saving the day 'cause they got a cold."

Owens snorted. "Pete listened to the recruiter too much, doc."

His friend shoved him hard. "That was _sarcasm_, dumbass."

"You'll get your chance to shoot-em-up," growled Doyle from his cushion near the doorway. The two newbies jumped and immediately looked sheepish. "You just wait, boys. Wraith don't use happy-juice, and they sure as hell don't catch colds."

"Maybe doc could fix something up that'd give 'em all fatal pneumonia," Owens said cheerfully. "_Wham_, _blam_, thank you _ma'am_, and the whole Wraith fleet dropping down dead after he threw a bug-bomb into their air ducts."

Carson's smile froze.

Desjardin smirked and whupped his friend upside the head. "You dumb redneck; don't you think they might have tried that already?"

"I _did_ think that," Owens said defensively, rubbing his head. "But they haven't done it _properly_. They just tried to turn the 'suckers into humans, and where's the point in that?"

"Well," Desjardin said with acid etched in every word, "they wouldn't be _suckers_ anymore would they?"

"But that's just it." Owens looked as though he were pleading a case as he turned to Carson, whose fixed smile hadn't moved. "If you turn them all human you have to feed 'em and house 'em and make sure the other suckers don't eat 'em. And you have to keep 'em from changing back. But if you just wipe 'em all out, then you got no worries at all, have you?"

He was absolutely right and utterly wrong all at once. Carson tried to think of an answer that he hadn't already tried, tossed aside, and ignored during his stay at Atlantis.

He failed.

"Well," he said finally, "it wouldn't be very moral, would it?"

The two newbies shared a look, before turning back to him with identical expressions of sympathetic pity.

"This is _Pegasus_, doc," Owens said kindly. "What morals?"

o.O.o

Lorne chattered for as long as he could – surprisingly long, considering he was a soldier not a diplomat – but eventually he managed to bring up the subject on the forefront of everyone else's minds, or at least everyone who had seen a Hiveship before.

"The panel in the gallery we saw..."

"Ah, yes." Narforen gave no indication that he knew how serious it was, or that he should try to redirect the conversation. Lorne felt his stomach flutter restlessly with unease. Surely they couldn't be _that_ naïve? "Yes, that has an interesting story behind it. Pender?"

The First Speaker, seated beside his master, straightened and got up without further instruction. The Lantians watched him leave with a certain amount of surprise, until Narforen spoke again.

"He leaves to provide substance to the tale. Most need it after the verbal part is over."

Lorne nodded uncertainly and tried to look ready for a story. He saw – out of the corner of his eye – Carson break off gratefully from his conversation with the two newbies and turn to face them. Doyle was already watching intently, his expression unreadable.

Narforen checked they were all listening, and began, his voice becoming deep and slow.

"After Ikath Mal first brought our people here it took less than ten years for the natives – who we termed the Aib – to be driven back to the deep places of Erusia, to the mountain roots and the hollows in the hills to the west. There we left them, unwilling to pursue them into the darkness, and deeming it unnecessary. Soon after the first battle a sickness appeared in them, a plague of weeping sores, and so they died by the hundreds. We contented ourselves with the building of our home, which Ikath Mal decreed should be called Aru-Moenia, the Tower of Strength, and the city grew."

Carson, who was that sort of character, peeked at the others during the recitation. Owens and Desjardin were muffling laughter at the archaic speech of the story, Doyle keeping an eye on them both and glaring if they made too much noise. Zelenka and Lorne were focusing entirely on the Exarch.

"It grew, even beyond the lifetime of Ikath Mal, who took the name Ra, meaning Mighty, and so have all the Exarchs after him. Gold was pulled from the mountains, and silver and gems, shaking the caverns of the Aib with their mining, until it was only in the time of Ikath Mal's grandson, Maderan Mal-Ra that it was deemed finished. And the followers of Mal-Ra celebrated that night with a great feast and many fires.

But as midnight struck there was a great light in the sky, and all wondered at the sight. At first the people thought that the Gods themselves had chosen to descend upon the city, for as the lights grew brighter they sparkled with many colours, yellow and blue and red. But then a great shape appeared in the sky, as huge as the city itself, and it spat blue fire to the mountains.

And the people were afraid.

All save one. Maderan Mal-Ra went to the summit of the city walls, looking to the north, and he beheld the strange shape without fear. He deemed them the work of evil, the creation of demons, and as they drew almost to the very skies over the city he stood and cursed them with all the power of the Gods.

As he did many bright spirits emerged from the mountain, flying up to the great sky-flyer, the work of demons, and setting them aflame. The demon-spawn melted before the power of the Gods, and tumbled down from the sky, until they were swallowed by the lake in a great flood of fire and water.

Then the people lost their fear and praised Maderan, saying that he had saved them and that the Gods loved him, and bestowing the first title of Exarch. And so from Maderan the House of Mal-Ra, beloved of the Gods, has ruled, and shall always as long as the Laws are kept."

"Laws!" Zelenka said not quite under his breath. "Laws that say to kill all of those _ještěrka_ creatures. Very holy."

"We were content to leave the Aib in peace," Narforen said coolly. "As we left their servants in peace, the dragon-mounts that dwelt in the lake. However..."

"The ship– sky flyer," Carson said suddenly, his thoughts racing. "If it hit the lake..."

"... It would have created a great deal of damage," Narforen said with a commendatory nod in Carson's direction. "Yes. All record of the Aib stop there, as does that of the dragons. It is generally considered that the impact of the sky-flyer finished what the plagues had started, with the additional benefit of exterminating the dragon-mounts as well. At least, none have been seen since then."

_Benefit_, Carson noted. So the citizens of Aru-Moenia might not have had a hand in the final annihilation of the Aib, but they certainly didn't regret it. But then, why would they? It had saved them a messy job.

Pender returned, holding a bundle of wrapped white cloth embroidered with gold. Placing it reverently at the feet of Narforen, he retreated with a low bow. The Exarch slowly unwrapped the bundle, revealing a hodgepodge of unmistakably organic pieces including what Carson was sure was the remains of a console, and a few charred bits of hull. They were picked up with great care and displayed to the curious Lantians.

"Occasionally we will find strange items washed up on the shores of the lake," Narforen explained. "Of course some are missed, because of the dangers of drawing too close after sunset, but still, a few pieces remain. Even the artefacts of demons may be turned to the greater good."

The way he said this made every Lantian shift uneasily and exchange glances. 'Greater good' had a nasty sound to it, especially as the 'good' was often sacrificed for the 'great'... at least in their experience.

"Wait a moment," Lorne said.

They all looked at him questioningly.

"You still haven't explained why the lake is so dangerous," Lorne said slowly. "What happens to people caught out after sunset anyway?"

Pender answered for his Exarch, whose face had darkened. "We do not know," he said in a grim voice, his eyes cast down to the floor. "We... never find them. They disappear."

"Nothing?" Doyle asked. "No tracks, no signs of a struggle?"

"Sometimes the ground is torn up or branches snapped." Pender hesitated, before shrugging, his arrogant demeanour shadowed by bleakness and something close to fear. "Most of the banks by the mountains are of stone, so no trace remains. In the wooded areas, the earth between the lake and the ambush always shows signs of something heavy being dragged, but..."

"... That could easily be the victim," Doyle finished. "When did this start happening?"

Pender and Narforen exchanged a long, thoughtful look, before the Exarch answered.

"Four hundred years. Since the reign of Maderan Mal-Ra."


	4. Chapter 4

Because all reviewers are wonderful people I'm going to post this early and with dedication all who pressed the little purple button so far. So thanks to Moonlight83, Cainwen, Jess, Deana, Mice2, Jersey13, Antares Star, Emma, LinziDay, Daryl Ann, captdeb, Hanmyo and nannon. Hope you enjoy this one!

* * *

Two hours later and the Erusians had left them – temporarily – and Lorne had taken the opportunity to have a powwow.

"Anyone thinking what I'm thinking?" Doyle said straight off the mark. Owens paused while munching on the remainder of the marzipan-like sweets.

"Yeah, I wonder of they'll let us take home a doggy bag?"

Desjardin bounced a piece of fruit off his head. "About the _Wraith_, dipshit."

"It's not bloody rocket science," Carson said wearily. It had been a long day, and he had a feeling tomorrow was going to be even longer. All he wanted to do now was sleep and forget. _Especially_ forget.

"A Wraith ship crashes; people disappear for no reason soon after," Zelenka added. "Two and two is four."

"How many survivors would you hazard a guess at, doc?" Lorne asked, looking at Carson, then Zelenka. "Or docs?"

The two doctors shared a glance.

"Ideas?" Zelenka said doubtfully.

"It depends on how many have been disappearing," Carson said with a grimace. "If enough of the crew survived the landing and started feeding on each other..."

"Hazard a guess," Lorne said firmly.

Carson shrugged. "I don't know. From what we can tell an adult Wraith can survive on a feeding every two or three months. That's four to six a year by our time... I think any more might cause comment, but who knows? They're obviously so afraid of the lake they wouldn't investigate even if a person disappeared every _night_."

"I am more concerned with the tale of this so-called 'power of the gods'," Zelenka said grimly. "From what I hear, it sounds more like a planetary defence system than a shield... one this Maderan could control."

"Déjà vu," muttered Carson, thinking of an incident six months ago on a planet ruled by those with the ATA Gene. It had resulted in a knife being held to his throat and a brief spell in a prison cell, something he had no wish to be reminded of.

"'Blessed by the gods' does have an ominous ring to it," Lorne agreed. "On the other hand, a new supply of drones would be _very_ welcome. Zelenka?"

"Hm? _Prosím_?"

"Tomorrow I need you to take Beckett and start snooping. Doyle, you go with them. Look for anything connected with the Ancients or the Wraith and see if it's up for grabs."

"What about us?" Owens asked.

"You two are staying with me," Lorne said firmly. "I'm not going to let you wander around getting into trouble."

Owens contrived to look injured. Desjardin rolled his eyes.

"Nice try."

"I'd appreciate some help," Doyle rumbled. "Keeping Zelenka and Beckett out of trouble might be a two-man job."

"Fine..." Lorne looked as though he wanted to retreat to the guest bedrooms as much as Carson. "Fine... have them toss a coin or something. Or paper-rock-scissors."

"I never understand," Zelenka said as they rose to leave, "why paper beats stone. Stone does not care when paper wraps around it."

"How do you know?" Desjardin challenged, defending his nation's ideas. "Maybe it's allergic."

"Rock is allergic to paper?" Zelenka said doubtfully.

"Well... maybe."

The Czech thought this over and reached a conclusion as they emerged into the hallway. "It must be a Rodney-rock then."

Carson stifled a laugh just in time.

Two servants in dove-coloured grey clothing were waiting outside, ready to show them to their quarters. Lorne and Doyle had been placed in the eastern circle – close to the centre – while the rest were in smaller rooms in the west. Carson wasn't bothered by this, although Owens complained bitterly when he saw the size of his room, until Desjardin told him to shut up.

"Good night," Zelenka said with an expressive rolling of his eyes. The two newbies were still bickering, much to the annoyance of their Erusian guide.

Carson said goodnight in return and retreated to his room; bigger than his quarters on Atlantis, but smaller than seemed usual on Erusia. The bed was covered in downy furs and a woollen spread, with soft rugs underfoot and a small table with a pitcher of water by the window. He barely registered this before he had collapsed on the duvet and sunk into a dreamless sleep.

Outside, night had fallen.

o.O.o

Sunlight was streaming in a watery yellow trickle through the window when Carson finally woke, and someone was coming into his room.

He was up and out of bed in less than five seconds, feeling slightly embarrassed at his reaction before reminding himself: this was a strange world, with strange people and strange things happening, so under the circumstances a little healthy paranoia might be just the thing to get him back to the Stargate in one piece. Prevention was, after all, better than cure.

Following immediately at the heels of this thought was the question of what precisely a man dressed only in his boxers and socks was going to do about unwanted intruders. The next was more of a prayer; _oh please God and all his angels don't let it be a woman_.

He had just enough time to wonder why the floor was so warm when the door opened fully, and praise be it _wasn't_ a woman, just a boy carrying a tray loaded with food, a jug of what looked like fruit juice balanced in the middle. The delicious scent of what smelt like crispy jerky wafted from the plates.

The boy scuttled in, laying out the plates and victuals and jug on a low table before backing back out without either speaking or meeting Carson's eye. The Scot noticed, however, that every so often – say when he turned away to grab his pants and jacket – the boy would flick a glance upward quickly, staring as long as he could before lowering his gaze again.

Carson had four siblings and all their attendant children for family. He recognised the signs.

"It's alright son," he said kindly, as the boy started to back away with a bowed head. "I don't bite."

The other jumped a foot and stammered something apologetic, scooting rearward towards the open door without looking up. Carson decided to try again.

"I'm up here, lad."

The boy flicked a glance up, caught Carson's eye and looked back down hastily, flinching away from his gaze. For a moment he dithered on the threshold, before suddenly finding the courage to stumble back with an incoherent request for forgiveness, leaving in a whisk of grey cloth and cold morning air.

Carson stared at the door, thinking quickly. A little nervousness was only to be expected from children confronted by a foreign adult man, even one as... _unimpressive_ as him. The boy might have never seen a foreigner before, or have heard exaggerated stories – hell, even _true_ stories – or just be naturally shy. Or have been ordered not to speak.

Yet something didn't add up. What had a child – the lad couldn't have been older than fourteen, if that – doing serving food at this hour anyway? Oh, he knew child labour laws probably wouldn't have occurred to the Erusians, but most children, after their initial nervousness at seeing a real life alien, would have been pestering him with questions from now until sunset. At the very least

But the boy hadn't been simply nervous. He had been _petrified_. And no-one, absolutely no-one else on the planet had reacted like that. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The boy hadn't even looked him in the eye.

Carson found he had lost his appetite.

o.O.o

The sun had climbed midway to the clouds when the Lantians finally met again with several of the Erusians in the central guest chamber. Narforen was there once more, a fact that Carson found strange given his importance, but he eventually dismissed it as irrelevant. Pender was there as well, along with several soldiers – each sporting a crossbow-type weapon and their hideous swords – and an Erusian scientist called Edeus, who was talking animatedly with Zelenka. The latter was doing much arm-waving and excited babble that Carson understood not one word of – a clear sign that the Czech was enjoying himself.

_Good to know one of us is_.

He had skipped breakfast – despite inner voices that sounded suspiciously like the combined scolding of his entire medical team – and come straight down to wait for the others. Now he sat in a quiet corner and watched the proceedings with a wariness born of long experience.

This didn't add up. The elements, separately, were perfectly acceptable for Pegasus – arrogant rulers, nervous natives, even the potential Wraith presence (and he had never wished that Teyla was with him more than this moment) – but together they did not make sense at all. Not least in that if the Wraith had been there for hundreds of years, they would have had plenty of time to send out a signal. The whole planet should have been knee-deep in the creatures by now.

He had spoken to Lorne about this, but the marine had had to ideas. Let's do the job we were sent here to, he had said. We'll poke around, seal the agreement and come back later with McKay and a few teams to check the place out. When Carson had pointed out the possibility of them all being sacrificed to the Wraith, he had been somewhat harshly told to shut up.

"If they were going to kill us they've had plenty of time," Lorne had hissed as Foyle distracted Narforen behind them. "Why wait until now?"

"They've got Zelenka and me now," Carson had murmured back softly. "Perhaps –"

Lorne had snorted scornfully and with a little contempt. "Why would they _care_ about either of you?"

That had stung. Carson knew the marine was judging by the native reaction to them – him – but it still stung. Was he worth so little?

_Oh, get a grip man_, he told himself as Pender approached from his near left. Lorne was right._ The galaxy doesn't revolve around you and your problems. It doesn't _care

"Major Lorne has agreed to negotiate further with the Exarch this morning," the First Speaker said smoothly. Behind him, Lorne was pulling a dismal face. "In the meantime you and Doctor Zelenka have been granted access to some of our most holy places –" and he looked a little disgruntled at that "– so long as I remain with you in order to... ensure our shrines are not disturbed in any way."

_More like you want to protect whatever technology you stole to hoodwink the naïve with_, Carson thought uncharitably. He nodded in concurrence nonetheless.

Pender smiled a strange little smile gesturing towards the door. Doyle managed to drag Zelenka away – his new friend trailing behind – and Owens broke off to join them, the default _I am a soldier, you are not interesting unless armed_ look on his face that military across both galaxies seemed to sport around civilians.

Well, most. There were some exceptions to every rule.

He pulled himself away from this train of thought to the present, where he as walking down a hallway of echoing marble with his guard, Zelenka and the Erusians in a loose gaggle around him. The Czech was still in deep conversation with Edeus to the point of completely ignoring everyone else, which appeared to be irritating Doyle. He, at least, had taken Carson's ideas about their hosts seriously. The bear-like man was stomping along hard enough to crack the flagstones beneath them, scowling mightily. It made him resemble to some extent a less hairy version of Ronon.

Other than the chatter of the two scientists, the journey was uncomfortably silent. Pender seemed to sense that Carson and the two marines were watching him with a deep-seated suspicion, and therefore did not bother to start a conversation, much to their relief. Mercifully the nearest shrine was only a short distance away – a circular room with mosaics surrounding a central alter – and it managed to drag Zelenka away from his new friend long enough to swear softly in Czech under his breath and pull out his scanner.

"We are very close," he breathed, waving the device around like a wand while Owens watched in bemusement. "I am detecting at least one major power source nearby. First Speaker?"

The Erusian was regarding him with a distant, thoughtful look that Carson did not like at all, but he straightened as his name was said. "Yes, Doctor Zelenka?"

"Is there anything...?" the Czech groped for the right word. "Holy... blessed... anything that might have come from the Ancestors in here? Or perhaps is this room is of the Ancestors?"

"The former," said Pender with a trace of distrust, although he gestured for them to follow him to the altar all the same. "Many of our most priceless sacred artefacts are kept in this room, for the contemplation of the higher orders. Before, strangers were not allowed to enter." His tone strongly suggested that he wished it had stayed that that way.

A sigh of regret shivered around the Lantians as he produced the 'sacred artefacts'. None were even remotely close to producing the energy blips dancing across the LSD's screen – one appeared to be a depleted personal shield, while the others ranged from the cap of a spent drone to pieces of a broken ZPM. Carson was careful not to touch anything.

"Is this everything?" Zelenka asked, unable to hide his disappointment. Pender looked a little insulted at his tone.

"That is all, save for those relics kept in the inner library..."

"Might they be allowed to see them?" It was Edeus. "They appear to have some knowledge of these..."

Pender looked daggers at his fellow Erusian. "It is forbidden for strangers to wander in the sanctums –"

The blue-robed scientist returned Pender's ensuing glare stoically. Carson's opinion of the man rose a little. "They would not be wandering alone. Exarch Narforen requested they be shown all they desired to see whilst here."

"It is _forbidden_..."

Edeus snorted, making his moustache blow out as if caught in a gale. "No, it is not, at least not by anyone who is not _you_, Pender. If your delicate constitution will wilt at the sight of them in the library, then perhaps you should stay here. I am perfectly capable of guiding them myself."

Carson bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself laughing. Doyle was not so prudent.

Pender's face resembled that of a thin, blond beetroot, but after a certain amount of huffing and scowling he ungraciously signalled that they should follow him, down the hallway and a flight of spiralling stone steps to a wooden doorway bound with iron nails. It creaked open to reveal a high-roofed, vaulted room lined with rows upon rows of dusty scrolls.

"Look's like something out of _Harry Potter_," Owens muttered, only to blush when Doyle shot him a disbelieving look. "My little sister watched it once."

Carson, meanwhile, had sidled up to Edeus. "Thanks for the help back there, lad. It must have been difficult tae stand up to someone like Pender."

The scientist did not turn, but his mouth curled in a slight smile. "It was nothing. The Exarch is wise enough to grant my profession a certain amount of freedom when it comes to taboos, which allows me to puncture the ego of my esteemed colleague once in a while. At this rate your people's visit here will give me the excuse to let so much air out of the old windbag you might well see him whizzing past the window."

Carson hastily turned his sudden laugh into a hacking cough. Edeus winked and turned back to Zelenka, who was waiting impatiently for the relics to arrive.

"_Zatraceně_, what is taking them so long?" he muttered under his breath. "Must they polish the things before bringing them?"

"They should here soon," Edeus reassured him as Pender loftily ignored them both. "Ah... see? Here is the keeper now."

Maybe it was Carson's Wraith-induced paranoia, but at the word 'keeper' every Lantian head shot up in alarm – including his. Images of sickly-white beings grinning sharp needles with slitted palms held open and waiting were dispelled almost at once at the sight of the person walking towards them. Doyle snorted, Owens looked relieved, but Carson and Zelenka shared a look of mutual understanding.

It was a boy. Not just a boy, but a boy they both knew.

Not personally, of course; if it was the soul that was counted Carson had never seen the lad before in his life. But the _type_, yes, the mould from which the boy had been cast was familiar to them, because there was always one in every classroom, every school or street, the one who stood in the corner of the playground at lunch while others ran and shouted, the one who sat alone during lessons and walked alone at hometime, the one the girls giggled about when they passed and the boys bullied when bored. Their appearance varied, but there was always an overall pattern – perhaps the clothes (too old or unfashionable), their manner (too awkward or strange), or their looks (optional glasses from age five, acne from age thirteen, either too podgy or too gangly throughout) that printed LOSER and FREAK printed in bold capitals on their forehead for all under the age of eighteen to see.

Carson recognized this one, because he had come precariously close to sharing the fate of these children; he had lived with his mum and a brood of brothers and sisters, with one dead parent and very little money in the middle of nowhere, and had never quite managed to conquer an almost overwhelming shyness. Only an interest in rugby and more importantly a _talent_ for it had saved him, because the sporty, even the slightly weird ones, enjoyed protection from what was euphemistically called 'hazing'. He saw Zelenka's expression melt into understanding and guessed that the Czech had not been so lucky.

This boy had managed to avoid the glasses by value of his culture and the acne by luck but the slightly shabby clothes, the withdrawn behaviour and the uncut mop of sandy blond hair all conformed to type. And there was the look in those squinting black eyes, always the look, the dull resignation overlaid with fear. It was almost depressing, how you could journey billions of miles from home and find people never really changed.

The clothes were grey. He shot Pender and Edeus a hard look that the two Erusians missed completely.

The boy drew to a stop, bowed awkwardly, the bundle in his arms shifting so he had to grab at it to halt its fall. Owens sniggered, and for a moment Carson felt a most unreasoning surge of hatred. Not anger or protectiveness, but something deep and black and pure poison. It went as quickly as it had come, leaving only a faint sick feeling behind.

Zelenka was kind enough to take the relics from the keeper – who blushed and flicked a glance at Pender before handing them over – before spreading them on a nearby desk, the cloth rustling over scarred wood. No longer needed, the boy faded into the background without a word, leaving a long silence behind him.

"These artefacts are of the greatest value to us," Edeus explained when it was clear Pender wasn't about to speak. "They are somewhat different to the others – hence the reason they are kept here. This is the most secure place in the compound."

"Why are they so different?" Carson asked as Zelenka picked up one of the devices – an LSD with a medical attachment. It lit up in his hand immediately.

"They work," Edeus said simply.

Pender snorted. "The gods see fit to –"

"They _work_, First Speaker," Edeus said somewhat sharply. "Everyone who has touched them has produced an effect, save for those" – he pointed at several devices, including an egg-shaped object about the size of a tennis ball – "which are kept simply because they _might_ work. At least, they are not visibly broken."

Zelenka sighed, putting down the LSD. Carson understood his disappointment, but in truth was rather relieved. No working devices and no indication there were any was a good combination for him. He didn't want to have to explain to the Erusians that he had managed to break one of their 'holy artefacts' by mistake – although Zelenka had sworn not to reveal he had the ATA gene, both of them reasoning it might be better to keep that under wraps for now. All the same, he felt bad for the Czech, since everyone back home – _Atlantis_, he corrected himself, home was far away from here – would be expecting more drones, more 'Jumpers or a ZPM to augment their own, overworked power source. Food was all very well, _but_...

Edeus gave them both an apologetic look, wispy ash-blond hair catching the shadows and spinning it to grey cobwebs in the stale air. "I am sorry, Doctor Zelenka. That is _truly_ all we have."

"_To nil neznamená_, it is nothing," Zelenka forgave him. "But since they are here anyway..."

Carson sighed as Edeus grinned in understanding. It was going to be a long day.

o.O.o

Shadows had flitted to the corners, catching in the wings of roosting barras birds and domesticated t'ri to rustle and whisper in the failing light. Squeaks, moans, and squalls floated into the night sky as a prayer, tangling in the words of workers returning from day jobs and leaving for the night ones. The day was dieing.

Neboum fed the t'ri, stroking its head with soft fingers, before putting down water for the quat curled in the corner unaware of the approaching night and gently picking up the freth kit pawing at the hem of his pants. Animals were more open, more accepting of him than people, and he understood them better. They did not pretend to be things they were not.

_He was not much to look at_, he thought as the freth purred and licked the bottom of his chin with a rough tongue. No-one would believe the Lantian stories of miraculous healings if they had seen him, as Neboum had, eating lunch in the boy's dusty domain, or carefully avoiding the attentions of the little man with panels over his face while the latter pressed buttons and switches of the holy relics. He had almost seemed _afraid_ of them, and the priests said only those who were evil need be afraid of the true gods. But he had not seemed evil – just tired and a little wary.

And he had not laughed. That was something.

Ekam had not come back yet, and the distant mirth filtering to the room through the cobweb-shadows told him why. Every servant in the temple would be serving at the feast tonight...

_Except him. _

It was a privilege, to be keeper, but sometimes he wished it had never happened. Granted his brother and he would be on the streets, perhaps making a living on the stalls or by running messages to the soldiers sweethearts from the gates to the inner city, but that might have been better than the loneliness. Hardship was easy to bear when Ekam was with him and his friends – he would never call them 'pets', animals or not, they were friends to him – were there.

But it had never been his choice.

Easier not to think about it.

He sat down on the bed, the crackle of the straw mattress beneath drowning out the purrs.

o.O.o

Edeus had gone, leaving the Lantians to sit alone along a space cleared and filled with plates and bowls and saucers lined with rows of low cushions. The honey-gold oil lamps were back, casting a warm glow that banished the darkness till sleep called for it, and the tapestries had a gentler, softer feel to them than the ones in guest room, of landscape depictions and wondrous miracles rather than battles and death. Carson supposed that was intentional – visitors upon arrival should first be intimidated, then reassured.

Before him was food that constituted 'dinner' across both galaxies, although the pastries smeared with sugary syrup might possibly have been an escapee from breakfast. Not that that wasn't good as well. He noticed Owens certainly ate enough of it to prove it must have pleased at least _some_ people.

Carson had filled his bowl with soft white bread and something that resembled sausages swimming in brown gravy, sprinkled with an herb that resembled sage in looks and basil leaves in taste. The sweet green cordial was back, along with a red liquid that smelt distinctly alcoholic and that Doyle had forbidden anyone from touching, citing a previous and unpleasant experience with it. Apparently his ensuing reaction had almost sparked a diplomatic incident.

Gradually the savoury foods were taken away, to be replaced with deserts – Owens stubbornly hung on to his pastries as the candied fruits and cakes were brought out – and the dinner talk became lazy and relaxed, helped no doubt by the strange red liquid. Narforen, seated on a cushion at the head of the spread, spoke as Lorne leaned back comfortably.

"Was the meal to your satisfaction?"

"Yup," Owens assured him, earning himself a kick from his sergeant. Lorne picked up where the newbie had left off, nodding assurance to the Exarch. "It was."

The Exarch smiled, dark eyes creasing at the corners like an alien and happier version of General O'Neill. Carson had only met the man once, on Antarctica, but had taken an instant liking to him, insofar as was possible for a medical man to like a military one on the first try. He noticed the woman – girl? She looked young when she smiled, but older as she watched them – smile also, her dress of crimson and cream catching the light of the lamps. Her face showed a clear blood link with the Exarch, yet he had not mentioned her once. Narforen addressed the Lantians as a whole.

"The negotiations are nearly over; Major Lorne has presented your needs and I have found them compatible with what we can spare. But friendship is not built on frugality, and friendship is what you wanted, is it not?"

All nodded, but Carson heard Doyle mutter "Here we go," and mentally agreed with him. This sounded suspiciously like a new demand in the making.

Lorne evidently thought so as well, but nevertheless he stayed polite. Afterwards he would regret his inexperience, but for now the way seemed clear to him, and perhaps it was. "If it is within my power to give you, I will give it."

"Splendid." Narforen hadn't stopped smiling, but now he was _beaming_. "All we ask – in return for our friendship and the guarantee of the status of trading partners for the next to years – is the medical expertise of your healer Carson Beckett. His training could be of great help to us at this time."

Carson sighed, but softly out of need not to offend. Teaching the local healers would take even more time, and while he had no objection to good food and pleasant company he really should be getting back...

"Granted," said Lorne after a pause.

Narforen bowed slightly. "Then all I can say is; enjoy the rest of your meal."

"Are you bloody insane?" Carson hissed as Lorne leant back again and picked up his glass. "What happened to keeping Elizabeth informed of this?"

"Relax, doc." Desjardin answered for his team leader from across the spread. "That was just a formality; they talked about this _hours_ ago. Major Lorne radioed in and got Doctor Weir to agree."

Carson flushed, feeling more than a little stupid. Zelenka shrugged sympathetically from two cushions down, but not without amusement.

The meal was ending. As he looked around, the stain of red starting to fade from his cheeks, he saw couples and individuals starting to get up, dove-grey servants hovering in the background in readiness. Soldiers lined the walls of the banquet hall, spaced at even intervals with blank eyes and brightly polished armour, still as statues and just as decorative. He had worried about them at first by instinct, but had learnt to ignore them.

Now, as he rose to follow his fellow Lantians, he noticed they were watching him.

Not the guests as a whole. Not the Lantians in particular. _Him_.

The look could not be called interested, but it was certainly aware. Attentive. Watchful.

_They were watching him leave, and they didn't look happy about it. _

But he wasn't doing anything wrong! Carson looked around to check he was going the right way. Yes, this was it, the door that led to the guest chambers, and everyone else was either journeying there or through other exits to the gardens and outer walls to the city. He wasn't particularly interested in the former, and certainly didn't want to wander the latter at night.

"Doctor Beckett!"

It was Edeus, and he looked a trifle confused, and more than a little annoyed. "What are you doing?"

Carson frowned in doubt. "Leaving for bed, unless the Exarch wants us to stay longer?" Lorne had reached the doorway first, but had stopped to look back at them both. The marines were shifting uncertainly.

"Us?" Edeus smiled uncertainly. "_Us_? Certainly, the Lantians will be leaving, but why are you going with them?"

There was a long pause, while Carson tried to figure out of the man was joking or not. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Narforen and the unnamed girl walking over to meet them.

"Because..." It was all so unexpected and absurd he needed a while to answer. "Because I _am_ one of them?"

Edeus blinked. "Why do you say that?"

"Is there a problem?" Narforen had reached them, and he was no longer smiling, although his expression could not really be called angry. It was blank and determinedly calm.

"I don't understand..." and now Carson was addressing them both, and Lorne was speaking as well. "Edeus seems to think Carson isn't coming with us."

Narforen tilted his head in question. "He isn't. Why would he?"

"Why _wouldn't_ he?" Lorne appeared to reach the end of his diplomacy. "Look, if this is about the teaching he's supposed to be doing can't it wait until morning?"

"Teaching?"

"Yes, the _teaching_." Now Lorne looked exasperated. "You know, the training? The agreement? That he would stay behind and teach–"

"That was not our agreement."

Carson's breath froze in his lungs. Lorne merely looked puzzled.

"Our agreement," Narforen said cordially but with an edge of steel, "was that we would have the medical expertise of your healer; that rather implies we should have the healer himself, hm? Unless you can think of a way of transferring all he knows to someone else?" He smiled and spread his arms wide. "Major Lorne, I _understand_. You two are friends. You have grown attached to him. But you have struck the bargain, and now you must say goodbye."

"We don't give people away," Lorne said slowly. "I don't know what you think he is..."

"Is he not your healer? For your city?" Lorne nodded hesitantly. "He is your slave."

"I bloody am not!" Carson roared suddenly, but the frozen feeling had gotten worse. His anger stopped, running into a wall as he realised Narforen was _laughing_.

"Major Lorne!" The Erusian shook his head, tears streaming down his face as the laughter diminished. "Major Lorne, I must congratulate you. I had not thought of this! To trick a slave into believing he is free..." He wiped the tears away and addressed Carson directly, with patronising politeness. "Healer Beckett, have you ever refused a patient that has come to you?"

Warily, Carson shook his head.

"Have you ever disobeyed orders from your superiors? Ever _considered_ it? Has the option ever been there for you?" Narforen talked as if speaking to a rather slow child. "Then what are you, but a slave? Lorne told us you belonged to the whole city... that will change, for the better I think. You will be a healer for the temple only now." His voice gentled, growing compassionate. "I know it might be a little frightening, but rest assured you will come to no harm. You are valuable to us."

"He's not for sale!" Lorne snapped, and his shout drew the Lantians into a defensive circle. Carson found himself in the middle of a tight ring of protectors. It did nothing to take the edge off his worry, which had all been for himself and was now transported to his friends. He could _see_ what the Erusian soldiers were doing. "Look, there's been a mistake..."

"Evidently there has been," Narforen said, his voice now icy-cold, "If you believe you can bargain falsely and take away what is ours."

Carson did not need to see the soldiers move to know they had raised their weapons. He heard Desjardin gulp nervously, all bravado forgotten.

The Lantians stood in a ring of steel.

"Exarch," Lorne said after a pause. "We are not trying to cheat you. We made a mistake. We don't _sell_ people. And we need Doctor Beckett in Atlantis."

Narforen raised an eyebrow. "Is our friendship of so little value you will not give us something of equal value in return?"

"I..."

"You spoke of how precious, how important friendship was among your people. You clearly treasure healer Beckett's skills. What do you have to offer in its place?" There was a silence as he looked around the silent newcomers, then nodded. "I thought as much. Major Lorne, because I respect you – oh I do! I was once a soldier, as all Exarch's must be... – I will forget this and have you escorted to your chambers for tonight. But healer Beckett will not be going with you, and tomorrow you will leave without him, do you understand? And Major Lorne, if you think that speaking with your leader will help you are gravely mistaken. If I am forced to shut down the Ring of the Ancestors for as long as it takes for your people to accept this, I will."

More silence. The soldiers tightened their ring, each grabbing the arm of a Lantian and guiding them away. The leader took Carson's, gently but firmly, and pulled him towards the doorway he had seen the priests going down.

The coldness deepened._ I have a bad feeling about this._


	5. Chapter 5

This was one of those "Oh crap I need to update" updates, so apologies if there are any errors. But it's a nice, scrummy long one, because I'm a nice person. Honest.

* * *

Autumn was coming.

Those soldiers patrolling the battlements, the farmers out to gather wood, or chasing the predatory rorka packs from their herd could smell it in the air, half-melted ice and ripening fruit crisp and wet and tangy on the tongue. They glanced at the sky and saw tendrils of the mist stretching over the sky, grasping the moons with chilly fingers and drowning the stars in cold wetness. It clutched and smothered them, before descending, sated, to hover above the tops of the trees and pluck at the leaves, killing where it touched and turning them amber-gold in death.

As the corpses of leaves drifted in the wind, something watched the city.

o.O.o

Carson had watched the sun crawl towards the clouds for hours, cursing its slowness, but now the door was finally creaking open he almost wished it had clung to the horizon and refused to let go. The darkness had brought its own blessing, hope that this was all a mistake, a misunderstanding, that it would be all gone by the morning and he would be going home, to his patients and friends and his friends who were now patients; that this was all going to be _sorted out_.

But the harsh light allowed no such pleasant dreams, and now when he saw who entered he knew his day was only going to get worse.

The girl, crimson and cream dress replaced by one of emerald and ivory, smiled comfortingly, and proffered a tray of food. Her hair was pale, almost silvery, and her features were feminine, but when Carson looked at her eyes he saw Narforen staring back at him.

He found he didn't really have that much of an appetite.

"Healer Beckett." Her voice was trimmed and edited, each syllable carefully designed to sooth and comfort. It was lost on him. "You must be hungry. We have provided different fare today, since you found that of yesterday unpalatable."

His hunger had long ago been satiated with fear. "Where's my team?" he demanded. "What have you done with them?"

Her smile flickered, but stayed resolutely in place. "They left at dawn. The ring is to be disabled – for now. Maybe in time it will be restored, but not soon."

The underlying meaning was clear; there was no escape for him that way. He blinked and tried reason.

"Lass... I'm not a slave... there's been a mistake..."

She shook her head, scattering the words like irritating flies. "Father said you still might not understand. He said we needed to be patient while you learnt..."

"Did he say I'm tae be kept here till then?" He had punched, hammered, then slammed against the door last night, again and again, but the lock had held and the solid wood had mocked him. Unlike the guest quarters, this room was plainer and sturdier, with nothing – save perhaps the bed sheets, for all the good they would do with the window so high and narrow – that might aid him in an escape. Even his medical kit, stowed under his bed tidily, had been purged of bandages and everything with an edge. It was, simply put, a very well-constructed and moderately comfortable locked box.

"No. But you may not leave the Temple." An unspoken threat hovered behind her words, voiced under her gentle soprano in the heavier baritone of the Exarch. He was not _allowed_ to leave – and there was no-one here to aid him, nowhere for him to go or to hide. "And you must wear this..."

She was holding a bracelet in her hands, a silver one encrusted with enough opals to buy a small town. She clicked on his wrist before he could even protest and smiled as he pulled back sharply with a curse. "It shows you are a private slave – unlike most others here – with certain privileges. I would strongly advise you not to take it off."

He was certain, from looking at her face, thatthe bracelet was going to help them keep him inside the temple proper, but he said nothing more on the matter. It wasn't as if it would do any good.

"What do I have tae do?"

"Nothing too strenuous." Her blankly perfect face was more relaxed now; evidently she had been expecting more protest. He kept his own features under control and promised that when the time came, he would show her and her father what protesting looked like.

"For now, you must become accustomed to your new situation," she continued. "I will guide you, aid you as you learn. When you are more comfortable here, we will send for you as you are needed."

It disturbed him. Not the 'guide' being provided – although that would put a certain crimp on his plans of escape – but that they were being so indulgent of him. A slave was a slave, mistaken or not, and no matter how different cultures might be when it came to the ownership of other people surely the overlaying factor was that a slave was _ordered_ to do as their masters pleased? After going to all the trouble of keeping him, allowing him to wander as he wished was a little arrogant...

_Unless they weren't being arrogant. Unless there was truly no escape. _

No, he would never believe that. If nothing else, his friends – _family_ – would rescue him. All he had to do was keep his head down until then. Be a good little slave.

The girl noticed his shoulders slump and smiled pleasantly. "Now," she said sweetly, "wouldn't you like some breakfast?"

One look at the set of her mouth told him it hadn't been a question.

o.O.o

The first chevron lit triggered a chain reaction of alarms and a flood of marines pouring into the gate room to surround the perimeter. Elizabeth walked to the control room, her tread determinedly steady, as the event horizon quickened to life to ripple as molten glass behind a barrier of clear crystal.

"Receiving Major Lorne's IDC," the gate tech announced.

"Lower the shield," Elizabeth replied. The crystal withdrew, Lorne emerged, and he was _running_.

She didn't hesitate, but ran herself down the endless stairs to the gate room, never stopping to consider that they might have been followed or were being shot at, too wrapped up in the wings of terror to even think. She moved at a dead sprint down the stairs and straight to the major, now joined by one, two, three, and four others before the gate blinked shut behind them.

_Four?_

She looked them over and saw shamefaced marines, Zelenka with a face creased in worry, and a gap where their CMO and, she could admit right now and only to herself, probably her best friend should be.

She stopped.

Lorne looked at her, making her step back involuntarily. Behind the coffee-coloured panels of his irises was an abyss of guilt, shame, and sickening dread, so deep and dark she could almost feel it drowning her.

"There was," he said, his voice sounding from the end of a bottomless pit of self-loathing, "a misunderstanding."

o.O.o

"You have got to be _kidding_ me." The stress in Rodney's face and trembling hands bled into his words, running as fault lines to crack as his voice did. "Seriously, this is a joke, right? A very bad and completely unfunny joke, but well done for trying, ha ha, very good, now can we please see Carson now?"

John sat rigid, hands balled into a single fist as his co-leader and sometime friend answered, the nervous clenching of his hands the only indication that he had heard.

"It's not a joke, I'm afraid," Elizabeth said quietly, her fingers picking nervously and completely unconsciously at the hem of her jacket sleeves. As if in protest at her favourite scientist being taken away, the city's internal heating had broken – _again_ – and the room was decidedly chilly. The favourite scientist in question hadn't been allowed to fix it yet. "The Erusians sent a written message back with Major Lorne, and" – she pulled the scrap of parchment from her jacket to toss it at the table they ringed like a piece of rotten meat – "it's clear enough."

No-one touched the paper until John reached forward, pulling it towards him, and unfolding it flower-like before them. In the dead silence he noticed that the material was slightly furred, made downy by repeated scrapings and re-writings. He was so caught in stroking the hairs softly with one fingertip that he couldn't even read the whole message, words like _agreement_ and _alliance_ jumping out cricket-fast to latch on to his numb brain like ticks.

Without a word he folded it up and passed it to Rodney, who scrutinised it closely his eyes flickering across the painted lines. John saw his lips form the word _payment_ before his eyes suddenly halted.

"No," he said finally, the word broken and dry. "No, there's no way those Stone Age loonies are doing this. Just send the D–"

"The _Daedalus_ is still en route to Earth on a supply run," Elizabeth said flatly while John stared blankly ahead. "Even if we called it back immediately – which we cannot _afford_ to do – it would still take at least two weeks for it to reach Erusia. The waiting period for the next negotiations is eight days."

"Is there another gate nearby?" Teyla asked delicately. Ronon had grabbed the parchment now, his frown upon reading it threatening dire consequences on the writers.

"None within that time range."

Ronon looked up sharply. "So what happens? You're just gonna leave him there?"

"No." The words dropped from John's lips like lead slabs, heavy and flat. "We'll think of a plan."

"I'm open to suggestions," Rodney snapped as Elizabeth said "John, there's nothing–"

"We'll find a way."

"There _is_ no–"

"We'll find one."

"John..."

"_We don't leave our people behind._"

"Colonel Sheppard," Teyla said quietly. "I do not believe there is a way to Erusia before the eight days are up. We must be calm and patient – for Carson's sake."

He opened his mouth to tell her where exactly she could stick her _patience_ and _calmness_, when common sense shut it for him. It hurt, and it angered him more than he had previously thought humanely possible, but it was true.

He looked around the table again. Elizabeth's eyes were downcast; she was staring at the knuckles of her hands turned bone-white with pressure as if to read the future in the map of her veins. Teyla was composed; he envied her that inborn and trained serenity, the shadow of which he could achieve with effort but at the core he could never aspire to. Rodney was staring around also in desperation; he looked like a child that had heard the family dog had died and was searching for a way out, a clause or a loophole or an escape that meant this wasn't happening, wasn't _real_.

He saw Ronon's eyes and looked away. They had turned flat and black as a midnight sea, and he saw his own anger reflected there. It would do no good.

There was nothing they could do.

Carson was on his own.

o.O.o

At that particular point in time Carson would have given a great deal to have actually _been_ alone.

His companion was pretty, fairly intelligent, charming, and considerate of his needs. When he had become tired, they had rested in one of the side chapels on the padded benches, under the gaze of the Erusians interpretation of what the Ancients might have looked like. When he had started to get hungry, she had arranged for food to be brought to them. When the inner temple had started to bore him, she had taken him to the gardens and shown him the myriad plants of that world, the aromatic bushes and flowers of blue and red and orange.

Alien eyes. Alien food. Alien flowers.

Carson just wanted to go home.

"You seem discontent." They were walking among a copse of trees that wafted an aroma of resin and rotting leaves. The air had turned crisp and chilly with the wind from over the lake. He had to stop himself from snapping at her politely curious tone and speak evenly.

"Can you blame me, lass?"

She tilted her head in an inquiry. "Certainly I can. Why do you ask?"

Alien words. _He_ was the alien here, he realised. The thought just made him more homesick. "It's an expression," Carson explained carefully. "I meant: Can you blame me for being unhappy here?"

A gracious smile. "Naturally. It is... _improper_, for a grown man to sulk at the inevitable. One with such knowledge as you should surely know the hopelessness of brooding over past masters."

"They weren't my masters," he whispered, but to himself. Why bother to correct her?

She didn't hear. He was too tired to be grateful. "The past is a dream." It sounded like a quote. "And the future is as nothing. All that matters is the _now_, and _now_ you belong to us."

Fingers stroked his cheek and both he and his heart jumped at the unexpected touch. The girl lowered her hand, her smile bright but her eyes dark and watchful.

"The sooner you accept that," she whispered, "the happier you will be."

He said nothing, but turned away to watch the trees die before him.

"Am I allowed to wander alone?" he asked finally, with a trace of caution. If the answer was _no_ he fully intended to walk back to his room straight and not come out again for the next six days. And... if the answer was _yes_...

The girl looked at him questioningly. "Naturally."

The answer was _yes_, and he felt despair.

He had no need for a watcher. There was nothing he could do.

He had no need for a guard. There was no escape from here.

He had no need for a guide. They knew he would have time to learn his way around; the rest of his life, he imagined, if Narforen and his ken had their way.

His jaw stiffened. He would prove them all wrong.

"Then I'll go back tae my room alone." She gave him a look that plainly said _will you now?_ But she turned away all the same, and it occurred to him – belatedly – that he didn't even know her name. Not that it mattered, but his mum had raised no-one so rude that they would take up hours of someone's time without even thanking them – properly, and by name. "Lass..."

She turned back, her eyes a question.

"What's your name?"

They darkened, from copper to cold maroon, and her voice was freezing. "Those who are free call me Mahalia."

She spun on her heel, her shoulder blades stiff and angry.

"But _you_ will call me Mistress."

o.O.o

The Lantians had made Teyla Emmagen afraid.

Not _scared_. She had been scared a long time; practically the first thing an Athosian child learned was to be scared of the scream of darts, the sound of stunners, the heavy tread of a Wraith's boots outside the door. And the lesser terrors as well (_lesser_, now, _lesser_ was a misnomer; they were only _lesser_ because the Wraith caused too much terror for there to be enough left over for real fear). The crop blight, the famines, the raiding parties of humans from the gate, sickness, savage beasts, festering wounds, bad hunting. There were so many things in Pegasus to be scared of.

But _fear_, deep-down real in-the-gut _fear_, was something she had only learned after strangers with strange clothes and strange weapons had come to the village one day, and they had been taken back after the raid to a place filled with wonder.

And fear had soon followed.

Because before things had been simple. People lived and – for the most part – they died, predominantly due to the Wraith. This was just how things were, and you got used to it, in a way. You learned to accept things, or go mad. Everything the same, and you didn't hope for a better future because you didn't know there _could_ be a better future.

Sometimes, when darts and loved ones screamed, you weren't even sure there was a future at all.

But now, because of these strangers with their shiny weapons and shiny dreams, she had learned to hope, and because of that hope fear had bloomed, dark and terrible. Fear that the hope would prove false.

Fear that they might _lose_.

Fear that she might lose _them_.

Rodney McKay, with his acid wit and genius brain locked up in a body any Athosian would have been ashamed to call his own, but somehow seemed to fit the egotistical scientist just right. John Sheppard, who had talked about flying and Ferris Wheels and loved his team as a family. Ronon Dex, who she knew would happily die for them without a second thought, and who she had seen stare after them when he thought they weren't looking with an almost confused wonder on his face.

As if he couldn't believe how lucky he was.

Even the others; Elizabeth Weir, who she respected as one leader to another; Radek Zelenka, who she had seen pull off live-saving ideas just as well as Rodney; Lorne, Heightmeyer, the people who served her in the cafeteria, the healers in the infirmary, the marines who protected them...

And Carson Beckett.

A man who professed cowardice, but was still brave enough to creep through a Genii-infested city. A man who had never fired a weapon in his life, but had still taken a cloaked jumper into a ruined world to save a friend. A man who had seen the effects of Wraith feeding – more than anyone else – but had still argued and pleaded and mourned over a hundred Wraith they had been forced to kill.

A man who _cared_.

A man who she cared _about_.

So now she was afraid.

This was Pegasus. She had been born here. She had grown up here. Never in her life had she ever set foot out of it. It was in her blood and bones and brain, at the very deepest level.

So she knew, just as well, if not better than Carson; in Pegasus, when things went wrong, they didn't get better.

Wraith-drained husks didn't come back to life.

Trust that was broken wasn't rebuilt.

Friends who left did not return.

Carson Beckett was gone, and she was _afraid_, so _afraid_...

Because in Pegasus, chances were he wasn't coming back.

o.O.o

Darkness was eating the sky. Soon it would be night.

Carson was watching the sun set. It was bigger than the one on Lantia, bigger than Earth's as well; a great bloated yellow eye just growing watery with the fumes of autumn. It blinked stupidly with cloud-strips, and slowly closed to drift to sleep.

He wanted to sleep. There was nothing in the asking world to hold him; he was stuck in a loop for eight days at least, and sleep would pass the time well enough... it wasn't as though there was anything else to do. Yet he couldn't quite manage to drop off.

The door behind him opened. He turned.

The boy was back, this time bearing a tray piled with food that reminded him strongly of what had been at the feast – meaty pasties dripping in gravy, fruit pie and what looked like pasta in an orange sauce. The comparison and the reminder of what had happened yesterday made him wince almost automatically.

The boy noticed, and acted accordingly. Despite Carson's desperate attempts to catch his eye – talking would probably achieve no more than _last_ time – he put down the food with practised haste and backed almost at a run, if that could be accomplished while going backwards. It wasn't until he was almost out the door that Carson managed to find his voice, figuring nothing else could go wrong.

"Wait!"

Frightened though the boy might be, he evidently couldn't disobey a direct order and so halted, trembling. "S-sir?"

He stayed where he was, but put up his hands palm-first in the universal human gesture of peace. "I'm not angry lad. I just wanted to know who you were."

The other blinked uncertainly. "Wh-who I w-was? Sir?"

"Your name," Carson prompted, while bracing himself for another brush-off. Even servants ranked higher than slaves. The boy swallowed, his eyes darting left, then right, then back to the doctor.

"Ek-Ekam, sir."

"Ekam. Ok, Ekam, I'm a wee bit lost here. No, I know where I am," he added hastily as the boy – _Ekam_ – opened his mouth, "but I don't know what I'm doing here, or why I'm here, or..."

He trailed off at the lad's confused expression, and sighed.

"Tae put it bluntly, son, I'm lonely as hell and I need a wee bit of company. Where do the other..." He swallowed, forcing the bitter word out, "the other slaves go? _Are_ there any others?"

Ekam looked mystified, but then that was fairly normal among people who met Lantians. He nodded.

"Can you take me tae them? Please?"

"I can," he said slowly. After a pause Carson remembered the language barrier.

"_Will_ you?" he asked hopefully.

The boy cocked his head, considering this.

"Yes."

o.O.o

The Erusians in the Temple lived in two worlds. There was one on top, which was bright, sunny, filled with shouting and laughter, priests and scholars and important guests, free men and women with no fear of being any other way.

The other was smaller, darker, and quieter, and it was the one Carson was walking through now.

Nearly everyone down here was dressed in dove-grey; he had seen a few he could have sworn were soldiers – clothed in loose-fitting black tunics and pants – that he avoided by instinct, and was ignored by in turn. Others too, dressed in ordinary street clothes, bearing boxes and bags of things and hurrying by without pause. Up above people were retiring for the night, but down here below, with the flickering lamps casting ochre patches of light, things were busier than ever.

This wasn't a _slave_ place, he realised, or at least, not solely. This was simply the place for the... others. The servants and soldiers. The fetchers and carriers. The ones who obeyed orders rather than gave them. They looked at him with inquisitiveness, but also with acceptance. It made him feel a curious mixture of apprehension and relief.

"So..." he started, trying to break the silence that had reigned since they left his room. "How long have ye been here?"

"I don't know." Ekam didn't even turn, intent on weaving his way through the hurrying people. "A long time, I guess. I don't remember _not_ being here."

"Born here were ye?" he asked absently.

"Oh, no!" Ekam turned, looking shocked at the idea. "No, mum... she lived in the city, but she couldn't take care of us so we were... taken here. It happens a lot with poor families."

"'We?'"

"My brother and me... I mean, my brother and _I_," Ekam corrected himself conscientiously. "One day I'm going to be a soldier and then I'll leave here... I hope. I don't know if he could come with me, but he said he didn't mind as long as I wrote back. Only..." the boy looked a little embarrassed. "I'm not really good at writing and reading things. Through here, sir."

He disappeared down a corridor that smelt wonderfully of food. It reminded him of his mum's cottage pie, and right then he would have gladly killed a thousand more Wraith like the one on Sateda, just to taste it one more time.

He would have killed _ten_ thousand to be with his mum right now.

His guide opened the doorway at the end, revealing a room filled with smoke and the molten glow of banked fires like distant volcanoes. The kitchen – he recognised it as such the moment he walked in – was _enormous_, fully capable of holding at least a dozen or so Puddle Jumpers with ease and space to walk around in, and it was lined with ovens radiating heat even this late in the evening. Ashy-coloured people with soot and unnameable substances in their hair hurried around, unconcerned by his presence – at least until Ekam had scurried over to a well-built woman with skin like old bark and tugged at her sleeve urgently.

Carson coughed. The temperature and smoke was starting to get to him; up above autumn had cooled the air enough to be refreshing, but down here it was stiflingly hot. He shook his head to dispel the dizziness, only to realise his mistake when black spots swam across his retina like flies in oil.

A gentle hand took his elbow, guiding him through one smoke-cloud to an empty corner, sitting him down in a hard chair and – from the creaking sounds – seating themselves as well. A gentle hand under his chin tilted his head up to look at eyes like twin chips of tarnished silver, framed by hair the colour of a winter sky.

"Doesn't look so dire," said a voice turned rough with smoke. "The poor man's just been taken bad by the heat. Asley, get thy useless skinny arse to the pantry for some water."

A distant grumbling sound that might have been human rumbled through the smoke, but all the same a clay cup of water soon appeared on the table by his elbow, a great scarred wooden thing made simply by nailing unvarnished planks together in rows. The hand withdrew, the voice growing thoughtful.

"So it be thou that tis the one that's been disruptin' things so awfully this past two days," it said reflectively. "Now sit and drink thy water, newcomer, and maybe afterwards we'll talk."

He took a gulp from the cup, feeling his throat open to the water like flowers blooming in the desert after a long rain. The kitchen whirled on its own, platters and rough bowls being set out around them while the woman sat and watched him silently. She appeared to be searching his face for something.

Finally she sat back and sighed, as the world moved around her. "Poor thing. Thee's in for a bad time here."

His mouth dried in a way that the water couldn't touch. "I am?"

She snorted and tapped his cheek under one eye, her fingernail chipped and hard as stone. Behind her others were sitting down at the table, wordlessly passing around the bowls of steaming food and scar-splintered wooden cutlery. "That'll draw thee trouble like corpse maggots to a body in this place."

The place she touched itched, as though brushed with poison ivy. "My face?"

A small clay pipe was produced, stuffed with sticky black tar, and lit with no regard to those eating behind her, who made no comment. A smell of old socks filled the air. "_Ayah_, thy face, and more besides. Thee's young and not bad looking, and thy eyes will lure attention to thee." A puff, spouting hoary smoke that clung sickly to the walls. She tilted her head back pensively. "Already has, perhaps."

Mahalia's face came back to him, contemplative. Watchful.

Predatory.

She snapped her head down whip fast and fixed him with a gimlet stare. "Art thee fertile?" she asked bluntly.

Carson could only gape helplessly, his face heating until he was sure it was glowing in the dim light.

"Twon't make a difference to _them_." She spat a wad of black goo on the floor. "But it might lessen thy price of thou would comment on thy childlessness once or two. What use is a slave that can't breed for its masters? If thy masters want to breed from you, a slip or misspeaking might nudge the god-touched brains of theirs to selling thee on. Though" – she took another puff and frowned darkly at a future only she could see – "t'would encourage the others, though that might be a fair price for freedom."

"But..." But there was no but, and he knew it. Still, he needed to say something, get the sick weight off his chest. Words helped. "_Why_?"

The woman snorted and raised an eyebrow. "Because thee blushed. Because thee has fair skin and strange eyes. Because they can." The smoke stream, rolled towards the ceiling in a storm cloud of grey. "Because they take pleasure where they will, and a slave is easy prey. And a new, unusual slave... if I were thee, newcomer, I would keep thy pretty eyes and thyself in the dark places until thy friends come back, unless thy morals are more flexible than they appears to be."

There was nothing that Carson could reasonably say to this, so he stayed silent. A small, freckled hand nudged his elbow on the way to a food bowl, making him look around automatically. Seeing only a sandy-blond mop he looked back, before his head snapped back around whip-fast.

"Lad..."

The mop straggled back in dusty strings, revealing a scared face, squinting black eyes, freckles like grease spots on new wood. He recognised it at once, and the pity it drew. "You're the keeper."

The boy gulped and nodded. He saw the abject fear, the kicked-dog look, and felt the smoke spin cobwebs in his lungs. "You're a..."

"He be in the same kettle as thee," the woman said roughly, and for the first time a trace of emotion was detectable in her voice; anger, raw and bitter as bile. The boy only watched and stared silently. "No call for thee to tell him what he be, newcomer. He knows. He knows better than thee."

The person beside the sandy-haired boy looked up at this, and Carson saw Ekam staring at him with a mixture of anger and muted hatred. Now the two were together, he could see an immediate likeness.

"I..." He didn't know what to say; words had deserted him. Perhaps they were disgusted with him as well. "I'm sorry. I can't... I didn't mean it like that. I was just surprised." _Revolted_ would have been a better word. What kind of people made a slave of boys as young as that? It was something that only happened in stories, in places far away...

_Like here. _

The woman's gaze softened, as though she had read the unspoken word in his face. "_Ayah_, perhaps I spoke too sharp. 'Tis a horrible thing, for bright birds to be caged in a dusty old tomb, and I grant thee might not know of such things in thy world." Her eyes went hard. "Or perhaps thee do?"

"No..." His brain threw up images of sweatshops, of scrawny beggars on sandy roads and street children shivering, dull-eyed with cold. Maybe Pegasus wasn't so different to Earth after all.

Or maybe it was just people who never changed.

"At least... not where I come from. We don't have slaves there." Along the table slaves and servants looked up in surprise. "It's against the law."

"How'd you end up here then?" a scraggy, wrinkled man with grey-gingery hair and a wheat field of stubble on his chin asked incredulously.

"A mistake," he said automatically. The man snorted and flicked a look at the woman, whose face was pitying.

"T'was no mistake, young man, don't thee believe that one moment longer. The god-touched up above" – several glanced at the ceiling fearfully, before relaxing – "have talked about nowt else for days." Her smile was cynical, twisted. "Maybe the gods told them thou would be staying here."

"How do you..."

She sniffed scornfully, among the titters. "Don't thee go and make _their_ mistake, young man! We'm have eyes and ears... mm, and minds, just like yours and theirs. They talk! They chatter! They think we don't listen. They be wrong. We just don't tell what we know."

"Mistress Lana..." The ginger man spoke up warningly.

"Don't you _Mistress Lana_ me, Asley! They din't list to him before, so why would they now?"

Asley just shook his head and shot Carson a dark, warning loom from under pale brows. He looked away, understanding there was more at stake here than just his pride or shame. He wasn't sure what 'Mistress Lana's' words would cause if they reached the ears of Narforen and his kind, but he was _sure_, dead sure that it would be nothing good.

Not that there was anything much that was good here.

He sat quietly, drank the water, and watched the others eat – grey-clothed servants and slaves, a man dressed in brown with a red scarf and a guard with a short auburn beard and colours Carson assumed indicated a higher-than-usual rank. His stomach birthed thunder – he'd ignored the food Ekam had brought him, his appetite a joke – at the smell of the stew and fine greenish grains almost like rice, but he ignored it, and so did the others. He'd had his chance to eat and he'd spurned it; this was all they had and they needed the food more than he did.

He glanced at Ekam and the keeper, saw them wolf down the stew as though they'd never tasted it before. The stern-faced guard was watching them as well, handing Neboum what looked like one of the marzipan balls when the lad finished his bowl. He wasn't so selfish that he'd steal food from children.

_Oh aye, I'm just the essence of altruism. _

He demonstrated this with his carefully phrased questions to Mistress Lana – who was the only one still looking at him, or who would break the dead silence. Not ones designed to aid an escape or a rescue (and he knew it might come to either; being a doctor instead of a soldier didn't make him a fool), but ones to aid _them_. Was anyone sick? Did anyone have a problem that he could minister to? How could he help?

And answers came back: Old Asley had a pain in his joints some mornings that wouldn't go away. Mora had a bad cut from a carving knife that wouldn't heal. One of the kitchen boys – who gave no name but merely watched wide-eyed as Lana spoke for him – had an ingrown toenail that had swollen so bad he could barely limp from one roasting spit to the other.

It was characteristic of Carson Beckett that he didn't see these offers of help and the kindly manner he dealt with them as remarkable or compassionate in any way. It was simply how things were; as soon as he'd been old enough to notice things hurt he'd tried to make things better. Birds with broken wings, classmates with skinned knees... all of them were the same. He cared about them all. It was how he was. What he did.

What he was born for.

Mistress Lana did more than pass on their problems to him; she gave him a detailed and thorough account of what she had done to ease their suffering and the treatments this had entailed. Apparently the old-yet-not-elderly woman was more than simply the head cook or housekeeper; she was the closest thing these people had to a doctor available.

Most of the treatments were utterly alien to him – herbs and brews whose names he couldn't even _pronounce_, let alone understand – but by delicate questioning he was able to understand their basic components, and came to the conclusion that the cook's methods might have been by necessity primitive, but they were certainly not _voodoo_... as Rodney might have put it. His irrepressible habit of deriding Carson's profession had formed into a routine whenever he frequently found a reason to come to the infirmary.

Rodney would insult Carson. Carson would sigh internally and smile and wonder if the Canadian knew how transparent his obvious – if clumsy – attempts at friendship were.

He wondered when he was going to sigh and smile at the man again.

And as he started to explain how Asley might improve upon the poultice Mistress Lana had given him, he wondered if the man in question was asking himself the same thing.

o.O.o

Carson would have been gratified to learn he was.

Not precisely in those terms of course; Rodney McKay, resident genius of Atlantis and the terror of most of its science community was not a man given to wishful thinking. Ruthlessly pragmatic and almost militantly logical, he was realistic to the point of pessimism (but wasn't there so much to be pessimistic _about_?) when it came to situations like the one Carson was in now.

Carson. Dr. Carson Beckett, M.D. Dr Haggis on one occasion, thanks to one somewhat embarrassing incident involving a smuggled article of the same name that had caused Carson considerable mortification when his friends had come to investigate what the smell was... Ronon being under the impression something had gotten into the doctor's quarters and died. Still, the blackmail resulting from that had earned his entire team three weeks worth of the doctor's mum's special Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake, which in the isolated and more importantly _chocolateless_ environment of Atlantis had been worth more than its weight in gold. Gold was _inedible_.

But apart from that minor incident of extortion, plus the many and manifold times Rodney had managed to insult Carson's nationality, preferences in food and pastimes (who the hell _fished_ for fun?), cowardice when it came to Ancient technology or choice of dress (Dr Haggis had been replaced soon afterwards by Mister McKilt after a care package containing said item had arrived and been discovered by the inquisitive Rodney; _this_ had managed to procure enough Chocolate Fudge to feed twenty people and the undying respect of his team when he had shared some of it with them), it could truly be said that the two men shared a common bond.

They talked together. Ate together, when possible. Laughed together. Rodney was a hypochondriac not so much from anxiety – well, a _lot_ from anxiety, but also because he knew that, unless he managed to catch Carson on a busy or particularly tiring day, the doctor would always be there for a cup of tea and a chat.

For someone who was needed to save the city on almost a daily basis, this was a gift unlike no other.

Friendship was something of a novelty for him.

Oh there had been... people. People he knew. Had seen on a daily basis. Jocks at school that had paid him to do their homework. Girls at college who had flattered and kissed him because he could write their coursework in his sleep. Fellow scientists who had toadied to him when he was their superior and flat-out ignored him when he was not. He had resigned himself to a life without friends, and had gotten along well enough. He didn't really _need_ them, after all.

Occasionally – late at night or when Carson was busy during lunch – he still told himself the same thing. He didn't _need_ friendship, friends. He didn't need_ any_ of them. Carson or Sheppard. Zelenka or Teyla. Ronon or Dr Weir...

But when he argued about fishing and voodoo medicine, he called himself a fool.

Because strange as it seemed, Carson actually _liked_ him. When he had first realised that he hadn't been able to believe it. It was impossible that anyone should _like_ him, especially someone who he insulted on so many levels on almost a daily basis and whose nature was such that they could have befriended half the base if they so wanted. Carson could have spent his free moments with people who were a pleasure to be around, but instead he chose to listen to the hypochondriac complaints and insults of a Canadian physicist and never say a word in retaliation. Just smiled and said something nonsensical in that ridiculous accent of his.

Rodney was, in the eyes of himself and his colleagues, a remarkably egotistical and arrogant man. He knew he was. He knew why. He knew he _deserved_ to be. There was no-one in the city, maybe the _galaxy_, who was smarter than he was. He had put together a nuclear bomb in sixth grade; had been hand-picked to travel to another galaxy with the best and brightest minds paramount in the world. He could deal with technology literally light-years ahead of anything in he foremost labs on Earth. His IQ alone was probably more than that of the average marine team put together.

And he was proud to be Carson Beckett's best friend.


	6. Chapter 6

Another day, another round of whump for the good doctor. As always, reviewers are kings (and queens!) among men. And women :)

* * *

It was late. The night had pooled softly this time; it smothered the ground in a gentle blanket, easeful and restful after the long day. The mists were haunting elsewhere, the clouds blown to ragged smoke by the cool breeze, and in the gentle light of Erusia's double moons the skies twinkled with diamond dust.

In the darkness, the city looked like a galaxy of stars.

If someone – someone, perhaps, with sophisticated night-vision goggles or some_thing _with eyes designed by nature to see further into the spectrum than mere human eyes could ever hope to achieve – could have fixed their gaze on one of the stars, a narrow, flickering golden glimmer set in a high strip of radiance far in the central construct of buildings... _zoomed in_, perhaps, at just the right angle that they could see _through_ that strip to the unembellished little room beyond...

Then they would have beheld a man, dark-haired and pale skinned unlike any other on this planet, staggering in at the obscenely late hour to a well-earned rest.

And if that person, or thing, had been able to do so, they might have understood the reason behind their discomfort that night.

But because they could not, because they were confined to the banks of a mountain lake and their own legs, they did not know, and therefore did not comprehend why their Helper, the Speaker who talked to them in the little hours, was so excited – more so than at any other time he had spoken with them.

All they knew was that change was coming.

Soon.

o.O.o

Carson kicked off his boots, climbing on to the bed and laying back. Now he had made a friend of Mistress Lana (_friend? Well, maybe that was too strong a word right now, but it may be true in the next day or so_) life here might become... not pleasurable, because he wasn't here by choice, but maybe bearable. Certainly more interesting. It would certainly help win the trust of the other... ones in his position.

He was particularly interested in Ekam and his poor wee brother, out of a mix of pity, compassion and what Rodney had once referred to sarcastically as his own personal 'mother-hen syndrome.' The poor lads...

It was amazing he hadn't noticed the likeness before, he mused as the darkness pooled in the corners around him. Seen together it had just seemed so _obvious_, but apart... he hadn't even _noticed_...

_Because you didn't notice them, Dr Beckett. They didn't matter, did they? Just slaves... _

Sometimes he seriously wondered what Michael had done to him on that nameless little planet in that nameless little tent, if he could hear the half-Wraith's mocking voice so many months afterwards. Although he certainly preferred it to the _other_ option, because the thought that his conscience had started to sound like Michael by itself was more than a little worrying, not to mention _disturbing_.

_How does it feel to be helpless and alone, doctor?_

His breath caught. _That_ was not a prod of his conscience but a memory, and an unpleasant one, because...

_... He had held out for as long as he could and kept his silence, dreading the inevitable, and inevitable it was; he was a _doctor_, he hadn't been _trained_ for this, not a twisting, jabbing assault on his mind, it was going to be over soon, but he wouldn't beg he _wouldn't

_But in the end, he had, and the words had dropped from him with the ease of fresh blood from a new wound. He couldn't stop them. _

"_No... No, _please_..."_

_Michael's contempt had been vast. "I didn't beg when our situations were reversed, _doctor_."_

"_Please, please don't..." Where were his friends; did they know what was happening? Had they been captured? Killed? A fresh assault made him whimper. "No, no..." _

_Michael laughed, and he heard it within and without. It sickened him, the touch of the others mind; to invasive, too _alien_. It tasted of bile and blood and nameless things, sinister furtive things that stunk of darkness and hunger._

_Not darkness of evil. Darkness of the night, of the black under trees in a jungle, because that was the darkness of Wraith. He had a curious epiphany, strapped to that bed while Michael tore open his mind; the darkness of the Wraith wasn't like a human's, not an Evil or even an evil. It simply Was, like the night and the jungle. You didn't loose your way or die because the night willed it, or the trees hated you, but because they just were. Just because they existed. _

_They didn't care. They just killed._

_Again and again. _

_Another stab from the night, another cry. He was lost in the night, and he needed his friends and_ they weren't here

_He _needed_ them, where _were_ they? _

_The half-Wraith knelt down as the final probe broke through, his mouth so close the breath from it tickled Carson's ear. _

"_How does it feel to be helpless and alone, doctor?" he whispered... _

... It brought back things he would rather forget.

He shivered. Forgetting wouldn't be enough... he wanted to _purge_ himself of that memory, _scour_ his brain so clean there was no hope of it returning...

Michael sneered. _The coward's way out. _

_I _am_ a coward! _Carson screamed back. _I'm not _brave_, I'm not a _hero_, I'm just a _doctor_, just a man in a white coat; I should be a lab or a hospital not dragged through wormholes to alien planets, I CAN'T DO THIS! _

There was no reply. His breath came hoarsely, and when he put his hand to his throat it rasped and felt sore, his mouth tasting of salt water and sorrow and shame.

He couldn't do this.

He didn't know how.

And he knew, just _knew_ that someone was going to pay for his incompetence.

As Carson lay with closed eyes and a mind drowning in regret, he prayed that that person would be him.

o.O.o

Neboum sat in his cave and sighed.

His _cave_ wasn't really a _cave_, more a hideaway, or a den than anything else. Actually it was a spot in the Temple's architecture – the product of some long-ago renovation or decoration that had isolated off part of the roof, unless you took the deserted passageway on the fifth floor and climbed up inside a blocked-off chimney, jumped down _here_ and wriggled through _here_, landing in a lean-to type area with three walls made of the surrounding roof-top and a covering formed when one of those had partially collapsed, leaving one side open to the elements. It was somewhat cramped and uncomfortable, but the view more than made up for that.

From his vantage point high above he could see across the city, with its panorama of scattered lights slowly winking out as the people below sought the safety of dreams and darkness; he could see the disuse harbour, abandoned after the battle in the sky; and he could see the lake, which the wise said was a wellspring of evil.

H sighed again. The lake might be evil, and it might not be. He didn't know, because he had never even been close enough to smell the spray in the air. But he did know about the evil here, and right now it seemed a more pertinent worry than whatever the lake might hold.

So far the lake had held nothing especially dangerous for him. Quite the opposite, in fact.

He couldn't say for sure when it had started; it might be that it had always happened but he had been too young, too naïve to understand the wonderful gift he had been given. But he was old enough now – whatever _he_ might say, _he_ always conveyed an impression of great age and regarded Neboum with the amusement and tolerance of an old, old being watching a child at play. He made him feel as though he were listening in on the words of beings older than the city itself... perhaps even older than his people.

Older than civilisation itself.

He wasn't sure he should be doing this at all – something in his gut told him it was going to lead to trouble, but Mistress Lana had always told everyone who listened to "Think with thy _brain_, not with thy stomach." And his brain whispered that this wasn't wrong, that something this wonderful, this _good_ couldn't possibly cause anything evil. So here he was. Waiting.

Neboum leant back, and listened to the lake.

He was singing again.

o.O.o

Mahalia didn't turn up that morning. Carson didn't waste time wondering why. The only disappointment was to a small, uncharitable, yet loud part of his brain that had spent the night constructing a series of sentences designed to make _absolutely_ sure the Exarch's daughter knew _exactly_ what he thought of calling her, or anyone else, _mistress_. Or _master_ come to that.

His brain tapped that small and loud part on the shoulder, but it replied hastily that Lana didn't count. _Mistress_ for her was merely a title of respect not a legal fact or indeed a job description, which had been one of the delightful sentences he had intended for Mahalia.

It was probably a good thing he wasn't there. Although it might have been interesting to see how she responded.

He thought this over.

Well...

He could live without knowing that, actually.

Eventually he retrieved his cold breakfast from the tray by the door, ate as much as he could stomach (not much), and pulled his boots back on. Since there was bugger-all else to do here but explore, then explore he would.

His wandering footsteps eventually led him – through a circuitous route through the gardens, galleries, and several chapels; if he didn't know where he was going then Mahalia certainly wouldn't – back down the library, completely by accident. He had no wish to come within two hundred feet of the Ancient artefacts kept there, but once he arrived he realised this was a good chance to have a private talk with the keeper, since trying to find the kitchens would probably lead to him getting lost... _again_.

There were some things he really needed to ask.

"Hello?"

The archives were cobwebbed with shadows; grey ghosts hugging the floor and lurking behind the stand-alone shelves of bundled parchment. Dust hung in the air, making him feel uneasy, though he had no idea why...

"It's alright son, I'm not going tae hurt you..."

Something skittered in the gloom. He froze.

"Any..." His throat dried, making him swallow and start again. "Anyone there?"

And he realised, as the skittering became the _pad-pad _of soft feet – stalking feet – why he had felt uncomfortable about the dust, because it had been disturbed by _something_ and that _it was coming towards him..._

Yellow slitted eyes, lips pulled back in a snarl from sharp fangs. It flew towards him, and his only thought as he closed his eyes and readied himself for instant death was an oddly melancholy regret of the end that poor wee lad must have surely gone through at the hand of the one in front of him.

It struck. Claws fastened into his vest, pulling it up... _up_?

Carson opened his eyes. Yellow slitted eyes, lips pulled back in a snarl from sharp fangs... and _whiskers_.

_Oh_. He stared at the creature, which had settled itself on his shoulder with the dignity of the felines it so resembled and felt a complete and utter fool. _Oh_.

The resemblance was not perfect. Its body was too long, weasel-like, and its face was narrower, with sharper lines, but the purring and the tail-waving certainly conformed to earth cats, although it didn't appear to have the same effect on his system. Its silver-grey fur was fluffed and its ears were perked forward, the light shining a delicate pink around the paper-thin edges. Carson tickled its chin, earning him another ecstatic round of purring.

A gasp and a frantic grunt made him turn. The keeper – what _was_ the lad's name again? – was standing between two shelves, looking utterly horrified. A shrill whistle made the cat-creature turn its head, dropping down to the floor ever-so gracefully and stalking with dignity over to the boy, who grabbed it as though afraid Cason was about to eat it. He spread his hands and smiled.

"I'm more of a dog person, myself, but it's a cute wee thing." When the boy just back away he added "What do ye call it then?"

The boy just shook his head and quivered like new jelly on a moving car. The odd image was murdered by the older, deeper voice behind him.

"He cannot speak."

For the second time in as many minutes, Carson almost went into cardiac arrest but when he turned he only saw Edeus, robes rippling in water-blue silken waves. It took a moment for the adrenaline to recede enough for Carson to comprehend his words.

"Wh... why?"

The older man shrugged. "The gods willed it."

_Gods_. He could tell them a few things about their _gods_. He was here, running around where he had no place to be, because of their bloody _gods_ and their bloody _chairs_ and their bloody, _bloody_ stupid habit of leaving dangerous items of technology where Canadian _scientists_ might find them and abduct helpless Scottish doctors to work them, an incident which had almost led to the deaths of two people, both of them far more important than Carson himself. _Gods_!

The internal image was cut off by Edeus moving in front of the boy and frowning at the doctor accusingly. "Leave. You should not be here."

It had been a long morning, and the surprise of Edeus's sudden change of heart towards him was unpleasant. "I'd be happy to," Carson retorted sarcastically, "but you see, I'm a wee bit lost and to tell you the truth I haven't a bloody clue where I am."

"It matters not _where_ you go," Edeus stated sternly. "You only need _leave_. You" – the boy, who had been watching them both solemnly, tugged at his sleeve. "_Yes_ Neboum?" the smaller flicked his hands in a series of complicated gestures, the cat-creature yawning with dignity, as though bored of them both. Edeus frowned again, lines deepening at the corners of his mouth to extend to his beard.

He turned back to Carson stiffly. "The keeper has reminded me that a slave might wander here with the company of a scholar such as... myself." He pulled an apologetic face and smiled sheepishly, the lines erased. "Embarrassing, wot?"

The world tilted back to normal. Carson smiled back. "'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings'."

The scientist laughed. "A saying of yours?"

"Aye."

"It is a good saying." He started towards one of the splintered tables covered in crackling parchment, gluepots, and wax seals, waving them both to join him. As they sat down he gave Carson an apologetic look. "I'm sorry for the lecture, but if one of the priests had caught you down here..."

Neboum shuddered, the movement answering Carson's question before it had left his lips. Evidently mercy was not a priestly strong point. "Sorry."

"You would have been," Edeus said darkly, before his face smoothed. "_Why_ are you here, Dr Beckett? I was under the impression you did not find your time down here enjoyable."

"Well, I _did_ say I was lost," Carson returned with a rueful smile. "Besides..." – he stopped himself before he added _at least Mahalia can't find me here_ – "I wanted someone to talk to."

Edeus's lips quirked. "Unless what you want to talk about is the artefacts of the gods you might our conversation somewhat dull."

And against all common sense, all previous experience, Carson replied, "I know some things about the artefacts of the An... the gods. A fair bit, all told."

Edeus laughed, but when Carson's expression remained serious he stopped and looked thoughtful. Neboum watched them both hopefully, his face full of a peculiar longing.

Edeus coughed. "Well then," the scientist said, pulling a yellowing scroll across the table towards them, "Why don't we have a look at this one, hm?"

o.O.o

Three days.

Three days since the negotiations. Three days since the infirmary had had a CMO. Three days since Carson had left unwillingly.

No... Three days since she had _sent_ him unwillingly.

And two days since it had gone so horribly wrong.

Elizabeth blinked, rubbing red-raw eyes. No-one had slept well last night, least of all her. Logically they all knew that sitting up and counting the hours till the Erusians' deadline was both pointless and wearing on their health, but logic was no cure for worry. Quite the contrary, it made the worry a good deal _worse_.

Because logically, she knew – they knew – _everyone_ knew the Erusians would not be willing to give up Carson. They had him locked away in a secure area under the utter conviction they were behaving in a just and fair manner against traitorous enemies... reality was nothing in the face of such delusion. Nor would diplomacy be.

The only course of action open to them was _military_ action.

She knew. They knew. Everyone knew.

Colonel Sheppard was already prepping his team – despite the combined efforts of the entire infirmary staff. They paced the corridors or hung around the gate room or – in Ronon's case – ran constantly in the lower levels to build up their strength, circling through their actions like prowling wolves, faces black and bleak. No-one spoke to them. No-one dared comfort them. They drifted ghost-like, their lives held motionless until the time limit ran out.

Lorne had joined them, a gnawing sense of accountability for what had happened making him volunteer himself and his team. SGA-1 had accepted his offer with equability, Colonel Sheppard merely nodding and going back to his endless rounds of sparring with Teyla.

He knew, she guessed, what harm guilt caused.

She sighed. _Don't we all._

o.O.o

It was only his second day here, and already he was in trouble.

Well, not _in_ trouble. Trouble was _approaching_ – in the form of Mahalia clad in a amethyst-coloured gown trimmed with silver coming down the hallway at an unusually early hour – but right now he was well-hidden behind the doorway of an old storage closet and so fully expected to reach Neboum and Edeus in the library – albeit rather later than usual.

He closed his eyes and tried to quieten his breathing as she passed.

"Healer Beckett." The voice was quietly amused. His eyes opened slowly, taking in the glint of purple and silver, the amused expression and the slight smile.

_Oh crap. _

"It is not fitting for a grown man to play freth-and-sqeet like a child," she admonished gently before she noticed the scrolls in his arms. "What are those?"

"Oh...ah... just..." he pulled his brain back together and tried to act relaxed. "Just a little bedtime reading."

She stared at him thoughtfully, and he met her gaze with a blank stare, inwardly panicking. While some of the scrolls were trivial enough to pass a casual inspection, some were strictly banned from being taken out of the library at all – particularly by a slave. There was no way, upon looking at them, that Mahalia would think they were anything but what they were...

Her gaze went down to his hands. "May I see them?"

_Crap, crap! _"'Course," he croaked, his throat parched with fear. She picked up the first scroll – a treatise on the working of the LSD several floors below them, and on the definite forbidden list – and flicked her eyes over it, soaking up the diagrams and characters. When several minutes passed with no word, he tried to steer the conversation again. "I can't read it, but the pictures are interesting..."

"I see." She rolled up the scroll and passed it to him with a smile. "We really should see about lessons for you, healer Beckett. A scholar should be able to read."

He nodded, unable to speak with relief. She hadn't noticed! Either she didn't know about the forbidden list, or couldn't read well enough to distinguish one from another.

Or... he was missing something here...

He saw her eyes, dark and watchful. Secretive. And _pleased_.

She _knew_. She bloody well _knew_, and she _knew_ now that _he_ knew, and she _hadn't said anything _so...

He owed her.

And she knew that as well.

Mahalia glided forward into his personal space, a small smile on her lips, the darkness in her eyes triumphant. "Some things are not... suitable for a slave to read. You should at least be able to tell those from the others."

"Oh aye," he whispered, backing away. His back hit the stones behind him. "Aye, I probably should."

A finger traced down his cheek. "I have scrolls in my chambers. I could teach you..."

_The bloody hell you will_, Carson thought. If he followed her to her chambers he had a strong feeling that reading was going to be the _last_ thing on her mind. His shoulder blades were trying to dig an escape through the wall. "I, er, I –"

The hand trailed lower. "I'm sure you learn quickly."

"Beckett?"

He could have cried with relief. "Edeus!"

The Erusian hurried down the hallway, his eyes sweeping the scene before him – Carson, pinned against the wall; Mahalia, pressed so close they were practically nose-to-nose – his eyes narrowing. The other Erusian smiled at him charmingly.

"We were just –"

"I can see," Edeus said dryly. "Mahalia, I'm afraid I will have to steal healer Beckett from you. He is already late."

Her lips pressed in a slit-thin line, but she stepped backwards reluctantly. Carson extracted himself fast enough for Edeus's eyebrows to rise and Mahalia to pout, covering the distance between himself and the scientist in a single step. The scientist bowed as soon as Carson reached him, the gesture exquisitely courteous.

"If you will excuse us...?"

Still pouting, the girl turned and left huffily, leaving them alone. Carson breathed out and let his shoulders slump.

"Ye have no _idea_ how grateful I am tae ye lad..."

"I might," Edeus replied, his eyes twinkling. "Come."

He was grateful enough to obey the order immediately, falling into step beside the Erusian with ease. As they walked towards the library Edeus saw fit to lecture him.

"Mahalia likes affection, healer Beckett. That is her way. She especially likes to... _visit_ the newest slaves, for reasons of her own." Edeus's mouth twisted slightly. "_But_ – and you are not the first to learn this – however flattering her attentions are you must try to avoid them–"

"I've been trying," Carson said with feeling. "Believe me."

His mouth quirked. "I do. But she is persistent–"

Carson snorted. "I'd noticed."

"– and so it would perhaps be better if I were to stay with you while you travelled to and from us," Edeus finished with an admonishing frown for the interruption. "Just in case of any more... delays."

"I'm not objecting," the doctor told him, gratitude drowning out the lingering effects of the encounter. He sighed. "Six more days."

"Will you survive that long?" Edeus's voice was slightly teasing.

Carson felt a smile flicker across his face. "Probably. It can't be worse than our stay on M2J-344. At least here I'm not locked inside a dungeon..."

Edeus laughed. "You have had quite a number of experiences for a healer, Beckett."

Carson smiled in return, but it was empty. The words echoed inside, killing the gratitude and relief with ease.

_Quite a number of experiences..._

_Aye, you could say that. _

He distracted himself. "Beats me how you knew to disable the 'gate... I mean the ring."

A raised eyebrow. "You think us so primitive?"

"No!" _Yes_, he contradicted himself silently. "It's just... not many know how they work..."

"Removing the crystals inside is no great feat," Edeus shrugged. "And those who removed them were chosen for their memories... it wouldn't do for them to forget and cripple the gate permanently!"

He laughed, and Carson joined him, but inside he was whooping with unabashed glee and amazement at the slip the other had made. The _control crystals_! If he could only get _hold_ of them... the gaps to be filled should be obvious enough, if he could just get _hold_ of them, just for a _minute_, and find his way _out_...

It would be difficult, but this was _Pegasus_. And _difficult_ wasn't _impossible_. He dealt with difficult every day.

Edeus controlled his mirth in time for them to reach the library. "Ah, finally. Neboum!"

The boy materialised, his face relieved when he saw Carson standing at the scientist's shoulder. "In the second shelf up on the third section you should be able to locate Findlela's _Essay on the Healing Properties of Certain Relics_ and –"

Neboum was already nodding and scurrying away to the appropriate shelf. Edeus's smile became shamefaced as he glanced at Carson. "I should really stop telling him what he already knows, but it's something of a habit of mine. I tend to interfere too often."

He thought of Rodney. "I know someone like that." Curiosity poked him as they walked to their favourite table. "How long has the lad been here?"

"Nine years," Edeus replied carelessly.

Shock silenced him momentarily. "But... he can't be more than fourteen..."

"He is not. He was still a child when brought here."

"He's still a child _now_!"

Edeus looked at him, frowning. "Age is no measure of intelligence. He was already a gifted scholar when the Exarch bought him."

"But his brother..."

"Is useful enough. The dealer sold them together when it became obvious only Ekam understood the signs used by his brother." Edeus shrugged, as if there was little more to say. "Now most of us can recognise them, but Ekam stays – he has made himself useful. Perhaps he will be sold one day."

Carson was looking over Edeus's shoulder at the approaching figure behind him when he said that, and so was in the perfect position to see the look of utter terror on Neboum's face when the boy heard. The sick, black hatred came back, but he swallowed it and said only "Oh."

The scientist appeared to give no more thought to it; they spent the rest of the morning examining the scroll and discussing – or in Carson's case _informing_ – the medical properties of the LSD. Edeus was curious as to how Carson knew about them, but the doctor shrugged him off with half-truths; he worked in a place with lots of devices like them, and had learned how to use them from experience.

Eventually the noon-bell rang and Edeus rose to fetch something to eat from the refectory – out of necessity, since Carson would have gotten lost and Neboum was too shy to try and make the servers understand him. "I will return soon," he promised, leaving them alone.

As soon as he left Carson turned to look as his small companion. The boy looked back nervously.

He glanced around and whispered "Lad, I'm going tae ask ye some questions, is that alright?" Neboum looked puzzled but interested. "Just nod yes and shake no. Can ye do that for me, lad?"

He nodded.

"You've been here a long time. You know your way around."

No answer, but then it hadn't been a question. "Is there... here in the temple... somewhere I can go... somewhere where they won't be able to find me if I try to leave?"

Neboum's eyes widened, his face growing pale. He looked over his shoulder at the door... and nodded.

Carson breathed out. "A secret way out of the temple?"

Nod.

"And you can take me there?"

Nod.

"_Will_ you?"

Another over-the-shoulder look, another nod.

_Yes, yes, yes! _"Do you know where the crystal from the ring might be kept?" he asked hopefully.

Neboum shook his head, then held up a finger and shrugged. So no, but possibly? Carson frowned, trying to understand, when Neboum stood on his tip-toes and mimed long hair around his face... and someone smoking a pipe.

"_Oh_..." It was more a sigh than a word. "Mistress Lana?"

Nod nod nod.

"Do you think she will help me?"

Shrug, nod. _Maybe, I guess_.

"Okay." Knowing something else was needed he added "Thank you."

Neboum smiled.

Then Edeus came back and his face returned to blankness.


	7. Chapter 7

Many warm fuzzy reviews made me post this early. I actually cringed when writing the ending, and yes... it is whump. Is it normal to feel guilty afterwards?

* * *

"Thou art a fool," Lana told him bluntly. Carson had to admit it was probably true, but he persevered anyway. What else could he do?

"I'd be better off away from here."

She raised an eyebrow, holding her ladle crosswise to her chest. The pantry was fusty and smelled of loosely-stacked things that vaguely resembled green beetroots, but it was the only place in the kitchens where they could speak unheard. "Are the attentions of Mahalia so disturbing to thee?"

He shuddered. _Yes_. "It's not so much that as it is the thought I might be here for much longer than six days..."

"Thee will be," she said darkly. "They won't give up on thee that easy."

He jumped on the words. "I _can't_ stay here. This isn't... this isn't my _home_, my friends _need_ me..."

She pointed the ladle like a spear. "There's those _here_ that need a healer to."

"I can train doctors for them," he said desperately. "That's what we _came_ here for. But I need my friends, my _equipment_ tae do it." He threw in another line of reasoning frantically. "I can do more good on At... my home planet than I can here. But I need a _chance_ tae."

Lana scowled. "Hast thou considered I might not know where these control-stones might be?"

_Nice try_. "No. I trust Neboum."

"Good. Thou't may be no fool then." She sniffed and added, "Much."

He tried again. "_Please_."

She leant back, watching him through narrowed eyes. "Doust thou know the punishment for disobeying orders and trying to escape?" He shook his mutely. "I thought as much. Thou would'st not dare to ask otherwise." She sighed. "Stubborn, stubborn fool!"

"I'm willing tae take the risk," he said quietly.

"Risk!" she cried. "Thou know'st nothing of the risk! What risk is easier to take than the unknown one?" She folded her arms and eyed him narrowly. "Tell me, offworlder, if I told thee t'was punishable by death would you still try?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Aye."

"Or by crippling? The tendons of the legs cut like old rope? Both eyes put out with white pokers? Arms drawn up with scars?"

"...Aye."

"Emasculation? Would'st thou risk that?"

"Aye." It came out a bit strained this time, and she smiled crookedly.

"I believe thee. Fool that thou are."

_A truthful idiot. Well, better than being thought a lying genius I suppose. _"Will you help me?"

She growled like a bear but nodded. "Two fools together might succeed where one fails. Though," she raised an admonitory finger and his sudden hopeful smile, "I won't be coming with thee. Too much to hold me here."

He hadn't really expected anything different. "Thank you."

She grunted. "Thank me when thou art free, offworlder. Not till then."

She swept out then silently, thrusting back the pantry door to the only-slightly-less stuffy kitchen. He followed without a word, still gloating inwardly at his small victory.

The table had been set and laid for dinner again, and many of the same faces were gathered around it. In particular he noticed the bearded soldier – perhaps out of nervousness at what he was planning – and saw Lana give the man a slight nod. Paranoia rose, but was quashed.

_Neboum trusts her. And besides, why would she help me only to betray me?_

_A reward, sadism, currying favour, changed her mind, a trick, a joke, a trap..._

He bit his lip as he sat down. Of those only the first two held any real water, and he felt deep in his bones they weren't true. The slaves trusted Mistress Lana, it was obvious, – they came damn near worshiping her at times. They wouldn't trust a toady to their masters, or someone who betrayed one of their own.

_But I'm not one of their own. _

He pulled a bowl of stew towards him and tried to look casual. He'd just have to risk it.

The guard was watching him, but with nowhere like the interest that he would have expected from a man viewing a soon-to-be-escaping slave. Carson was under the distinct impression he was being looked at simply because he was in the guard's line of sight.

Lana sat down next to him, lit her pipe – as usual, she never ate with the others at mealtimes – and muttered lowly "Dost thee know where the story gallery be?"

He stared into the bowl before him and gave it a small nod. "The one with the glass pictures?"

"That's it. Now, do know which shows the reign of Bonnanon the first? The one with the destruction of the Five Cities?"

He nodded at his bowl again.

"Good. There be a doorway between that panel and the building of second wall-ring. Go through that and follow the hallway. The room at the end has thy control-stones in it."

"_Guards_?" he breathed into his spoonful of stew.

"One. I'm sure a clever man like thee will know what to tell him."

Not really, but that could wait. Plenty of time between this evening and the dawn to plot a little. "Thank you."

The pipe spouted hoary fumes. "As I said: Thank me when thou art free. And, offworlder?"

"Aye?" he said apprehensively. Her tone had gone hard and cold as a sliver of raw stone.

"The boy, Neboum... he and his brother are very dear to us." She nodded in the direction of the others, and Carson turned to see Asley conversing with the boys in question, his face attentive as Ekam translated his brother's gestures. He turned back as Lana's voice deepened to a flat growl. "If thou does hurt that boy or his brother... or cause them to be harmed..." – her eyes were like silver mirrors – "I will use thy manhood as soup-stock and thy liver to mop my floor with... do I make myself clear?"

He swallowed slowly and nodded.

"Good." She pulled the pipe out and grinned like a shark before saying, "as long as thou do understand."

_Perfectly_, Carson thought as he started to plan his escape. An idea started to form.

"Mistress Lana?" he asked. "Just one more question..."

o.O.o

The sky was heavy with grey rain clouds filled with a light drizzle from the mainland; fresh and sweet with the blossoms that were already starting to show above the snowlines in the hills. The hopeful feeling in the air – for it was the start of spring – had a counterpart in the city, where in every dim entrance, every lonely bedroom and sad meeting place, the shadow-filled infirmary and deserted hallways, darkness waited in the fall of the night.

Atlantis, great city of the Ancients and hope of the galaxy against an unbeatable foe, was in limbo.

It was clear in every face, every sigh, every eye glazed with sadness that the darkness in the city had touched the hearts of its dwellers; or perhaps it was the dwellers who infected the city with rottenness, a bleak despondency as deep as despair. Even smiles and laughter had no effect; the sounds were quickly hushed by the mirthful, for the brightness of their happiness only threw into contrast the clinging gloom around them.

But the despair was not the worst.

Depression is a selfish emotion; every man and woman under its spell was wrapped in their own misery and centred inwards, thinking only of themselves and their numbing pain. But there were some for whom the only way to deal with the pain was to release it outwards, and reports came daily to the keepers of Atlantis of them.

Of Laura Cadman, who had fixed it with Zelenka so that the rooms of seven new marines went stone-cold and smelt of the festering garbage of the disposal unit next door. They had asked if Carson was still part of the 'Lucius Fan Club.'

Of Dr Parrish, who had slipped a new type of herb into the tea of his fellow botanist Edward Peterson that made him break out in uncontrollable itching. Peterson had asked if Carson had betrayed them to the Wraith after the retrovirus attempt had gone sour.

Of Ronon, who had broken someone's nose in the mess hall and then their wrist two days later in the sparring area. The man had suggested it might be better if Carson didn't come back at all, all things considering.

These men – and women – were reprimanded, their files were marked, but the current of underlying tension and barely-controlled pain still flowed as swift and deep as ever. Without a centre to rotate around, the personnel of Atlantis were spinning out of control. Sinking into chaos.

Carson had been the glue that held Atlantis together.

Without him it was falling apart.

o.O.o

Three shadows were creeping through the upper gallery. Their destination: a small, wooden door bound with brass nails and set with a heavy iron ring. The dappled moonslight lit pools of radiance along their path: light-dark, light-dark, a monochrome tapestry in the spun-crystal silence.

Two stopped at the doorway; statues in miniature frozen under the gaze of past rulers. The larger – and the leader – slipped through the entrance with a barely audible _creeeeeak_, before abruptly straightening and shattering the quiet with two soft words.

"Hello lad."

An armoured guard drew a jagged sword at his words, but stopped at the sight of an unarmed man holding his hands palm-forward towards them. He glanced down the corridor before speaking.

"You're the new slave," he said suspiciously. "What do you want?"

_New and a slave. So dumb and obedient_. "Bloke sent me," he said innocently. "Tall fella with red hair and a scar here." He touched his temple where he had seen a mark on the stern-faced soldier's face. Hopefully... "He said it was urgent."

The other sucked in a breath. "Captain Jortangi!"

Carson plunged on, almost giddy with the fact that the soldier seemed to be actually _buying_ this. "He said I had to" – a slight hesitation while he tore apart his brain for an idea – "to examine you for some sort of infection. Apparently that wee bug I found this morning in the kitchens might be more virulent than was first thought. Unless you want to fall ill with _cutaneous leishmaniasis_ I'll have to take a look at you and–"

"Take a look at me?" The guard looked at him askance. "Why here? Where is the captain?"

"He's rounding up the rest of the ones who had the soup tonight." He saw the consternation on the guard's face and grinned. _Thank you, Mistress Lana_. "Best to get it over with here instead of exposing you to infection without cause." A load of twaddle; you couldn't _catch_ food-poisoning. Thankfully part of being a doctor was pretending confidence, and over the years Carson had gotten pretty good at that. "Come on, a big lad like you can't be scared of a wee man like me." He smiled innocently as the guard looked him up and down, before snorting.

"Huh. Just make it quick, slave."

"Quick as I can," Carson agreed, fighting back a smirk and silently thanking the god of desperate men for stupid enemies. "If you'll just hold still..."

He took the guards sword hand in his own, turned it palm up, murmured "Hmmm, that's interesting," then jamming the sedative into a vein before the man had time to say "What?"

The guard slumped, his body collapsing in a dead weight into Carson's arms. The doctor grunted, eased him down to the floor gently – the poor man was going to be in enough trouble as it was – then stepped back and went inside.

_There_. A small box, almost like a lady's jewellery case and twice as beautiful, set with emeralds and sharp-cut topaz in a twisting pattern. He lifted the lid and barely contained a whoop, before grabbing the crystals inside. _I did it_. He couldn't stop himself grinning; it felt as though his cheeks were going to split. _I actually bloody did it_.

Neboum and Ekam waited outside, both shifting one foot to the other in a nervous dance, Ekam's hands twisting the bottom of his tunic. When they saw Carson emerged unharmed and beaming they leapt forward instantly, faces holding an identical question.

"Got it," Carson whispered, holding up a tightly clenched hand in triumph. "Can you get me to that exit, lads?"

Neboum nodded, but Ekam looked uncertain. He glanced inside the corridor.

"Don't worry, he'll be out for hours," Carson assured him. The boy looked at him worriedly before turning to his brother, who flicked out a series of precise gestures. Ekam swallowed and said croakily "Follow us."

The path Neboum led them down was convoluted and strange; twisting like a broken-backed snake as Colonel Sheppard might have put it. First out of the gallery and into the side hallways, then down two flights of stairs, along a deserted aisle then down three more stairs and into what looked like an abandoned chapel; its paints cracked and peeling in the damp trickling down the walls. Carson guessed buy the cold they were deep underground.

"How much further?" he whispered hoarsely.

Neboum glanced behind, his hands moving in a hurried knot. "We're here," Ekam said.

And so they were.

Ekam pointed and translated. "It leads out of the city through the sewers; you should make it by dawn. It'll take a few days to get to the ring in daylight, but as long as you keep near the roads..."

It looked like a giant rat hole chewed in the wall more than anything else; the edges ragged with fallen bricks, its interior dank and smelling of rot. Green algae coated the walls and floor around it, as well as a white slimy mould that reminded Carson unpleasantly of the material Wraith cocoons were made of. It gaped at him drunkenly and dared him to carry on.

_Step in to my parlour, said the spider to the fly. _

That bad feeling was back, but now wasn't the time to chicken out. He'd come too far for that now.

He turned to the two boys, still feeling guilty about using them but knowing there was no other way. "Thank you, lads. You don't know how much this means to me."

Neboum's hands fluttered. "We might," Ekam translated.

_Fair call_. "Thank you anyway," he repeated. "You'd best get back fast if ye don't want to get caught."

He saw the look that passed between them, of mingled disbelief and alarm, and felt himself frown. Ekam looked back up at him and stammered "W-we thought we were going _with_ you."

_What_? He looked at them both in astonishment. "Whatever gave you that idea? It's far too dangerous..."

"It'll be dangerous for you as well, sir," Ekam pointed out as his brother nodded vigorously. "We thought maybe we could... come with you...?"

"Out of the question." If he failed... or even succeeded in getting out of the citadel and past the city... how could he live with himself, dragging two little boys with him? It _was_ out of the question. "I can't put you two at risk after everything you've done for me. You have to go back before you're missed."

They stared at him wide-eyed, pleading with him to back down. Right then he truly, deeply wondered how he could have missed the similarity between them. One might be taller, the other might have lighter hair, but their eyes were the same. Hurt and afraid. Afraid they would never see him again...

It made him feel guiltier than ever. _He had used them without any reward at all. Without even _considering_ it..._

A thought struck him, and he acted on it at once without pause. Fumbling at his wrist, he pulled something of it and said "Here..."

It was the bracelet Mahalia had given him. Both boys gaped at the king's ransom in front of them.

"Do you know anyone trustworthy that could sell this for you?" he asked.

Both nodded, and Ekam said "Mistress Lana."

_Of course_, Carson thought rather sourly, but time was pressing. "I reckon that'll be enough to buy you your freedom – seven times over I imagine."

Ekam seemed to be having trouble breathing. "Yes," he squeaked, taking the bracelet slowly, turning it to watch the jewels glimmer in the phosphorous light of the fungi. "I think... eight times over." He looked up, his face transfixed with awe. "Thank you."

Carson swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and tried to smile. "Well... get going then! Unless you want the soldiers to catch you..."

Neither boy needed any more telling, scampering back up the passage. Ekam turned at the top and waved. "Goodbye, sir!"

Carson waved his hands. "Shoo!"

They both disappeared. He shook his head with a smile and turned back to the tunnel. He stared at it a long while, hesitating.

_Step in to my parlour..._

"Nothing for it," he muttered to himself uneasily. "Come on lad..."

That was when he heard the footsteps.

o.O.o

Neboum couldn't remember ever running so fast, or being happier. He had helped healer Beckett, and in return the offworlder had done exactly as he had hoped. They were practically free! And _rich_...

Then he heard the footsteps.

_Tramp, tramp, tramp. _

His bladder knotted an unpleasant shape in his gut as he tugged at Ekam's sleeve. His twin had gone ashen.

"_Neboum_..." he breathed.

_Tramp, tramp, tramp_.

_Booted_ feet, and in a world of soft-soled shoes and sandals that only meant one thing.

"It is soldiers," Neboum signed. "They are coming this way!"

His brother made a whimpering sound, pulling them both to a crumbled bit of the wall. They crouched behind the rock pile and heard the footsteps draw closer...

_Tramp, tramp, tramp... _

... Draw level...

_...TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP..._

... And fade away as the soldiers moved on.

_...Tramp, tramp, tramp_.

They looked at each other, each face showing an identical fear.

"They're going down to the tunnel," Ekam whispered.

o.O.o

"Healer Beckett!"

For the first time in his adult life, Carson swore at the top of his voice. "Oh _fuck_!"

_Please, _please_ let them not have found the wee lads..._

The footsteps – a marching tattoo – had stopped outside the tunnel. While it was too dark for them to see inside, they seemed to know who they would find.

The voice was deep and male. He had a strong suspicion he knew who it was.

"Come out, healer Beckett."

_Like bloody hell._ He stayed quiet, hoping against hope they were guessing...

"We know you are there, healer Beckett. We know what you are planning."

He didn't dare breath. _How, how, how? How_ had they been found out...?

_Lana_. The name chilled his guts. She must have told... told them his plans... it was all over...

"Come out now and your punishment will be less." The other paused and said more lowly, "and we will... _forget_ to ask you how you found this place. You have my word."

_To blazes with your word... _but it was the only choice he could take, because choosing between his own life and the lives of two innocent children...

It was no choice. No choice at all.

He swallowed dryly and croaked, "I'm coming."

Slipping on slime-mould, smearing the jelly-like fungus on his hands in green-white streaks like gangrene, he emerged from the tunnel. Six soldiers, their lacquered breastplates and kilts gleaming in the light of three torches, stared back at him with expressions ranging from amusement to disgust.

Their leader was the auburn-haired captain.

"Healer Beckett," he rumbled. "I am sorry."

Carson shivered, and not entirely because of the cold. "So am I."

o.O.o

The impromptu gathering out in the chilly courtyard took a shorter time than Carson would have expected. He had a sickening suspicion it had been planned.

_Like since this evening. _

Narforen was there, which surprised him – he wouldn't have expected an Exarch to be bothered about disobedient slaves. Mahalia was there as well, standing by her father at the front with a blank expression that didn't quite hide the gleeful look on her face. The rest were soldiers and slaves who had crept up from the lower levels to see 'justice' dispensed.

Carson stood with the captain's arm on his elbow, feeling terribly alone. He could see faces he recognised – Asley, the kitchen-lad with the ingrown toenail, a few of the soldiers he might have seen down below – but no Neboum or Ekam, and no Lana either. He was grateful. The boys didn't need to see this, and he wasn't sure he could keep his temper if Lana showed up.

"Beckett." Narforen's voice was resonant and contained a world of contempt. "I had not expected this foolishness from you. Such a shame."

His stomach fluttered. "You could say that."

"You _will_ say that." The Exarch looked over his shoulder at the captain and lifted his hand in a signal, before turning back to Carson for a final word. "I hope you are not so foolish again."

Carson hardly had time to be thankful there was going to _be_ an again before the crowds parted and it was drowned in fear when he saw what they were hiding.

A whipping post.

_Oh bloody hell_. He felt his legs seize up as the captain dragged him forward grudgingly. _Oh bloody hell, no. This is _not_ happening. This _not_ happening..._

The captain tugged at his shirt and he panicked, slapping the other's hand away. _Another_ pair of hands – calloused and marked with sword-scars – appeared by magic from behind him, seizing his wrists in an unyielding grip as the captain continued to yank the shirt off, tearing it slightly in the process, then stepping back and jerking a quick nod to whoever was holding him. The two pulled him forward and secured his wrists above his head.

He heard the creak of leather as they departed, the snake-slither of something dragging through the dust.

Carson squeezed his eyes shut. _This is _not_ –_

The first strike took him by surprise, his back screaming at the pain as the strap scored his skin from shoulder to hip. He jerked against the post and choked back a whimper, part of his brain still refusing to believe this was happening to him, that he was being beaten bloody by an alien race in an entirely different galaxy he had been born to...

At the third strike the whimper escaped from his throat, glad to be free.

The seventh strike landed on the second, the vulnerable area splitting anew. He felt something warm and wet trickle down to the waistline of his pants, twinned with the dampness spreading from his wrists as the scratchy rope chaffed them raw.

At the tenth strike he tried to think of something else – anything else – but the pain drew him back and held him captive, laughing at the burning spreading across his back.

The thirteenth made him bite through his own tongue.

By the eighteenth strike his knees had given out and he was hanging from the ties on his wrists like a sack full of water. The next sent a grey cloud through his brain, and he blessed the numbness that made the pain seem unreal – detached from him as the surface of the three moons in the sky.

The next he knew, hands were reaching up to untie his abused wrists, letting him drop to his knees without a sound, noting absently as he did so that his face was wet. Tender hands picked him up gently, wiping away the tears of pain.

"Thou young fool," Lana murmured as the crowd started to disperse.


	8. Chapter 8

Because I couldn't keep you in suspence for too long...

* * *

The healer was slipping in and out of consciousness when they finally made it to the temple proper; a boon in disguise for Lana and her helpers. Certainly the poor man didn't need to be awake for the experience, but he was heavy and difficult for an old woman and two young girls to carry far. Eventually Captain Jortangi took pity on them and hosted the offworlder over his own shoulders, leaving the two girls free to run back to the kitchens and safety. Lana let them go, having no wish to expose them to what was going to happen next.

They had reached the healer's room. Jortangi kicked it open with a grunt of effort, staggering to the narrow bed and depositing the healer on his front with a certain amount of relief.

Lana didn't let him savour his freedom. "Go get some hot water and cloths. And my herb bag." Jortangi started towards the door. "_Run_."

The captain did _not_ run – no soldier would run for an old cook-woman, herbalist or not – but he _did_ pick up his pace noticeably, going through the door at a half-jog. Lana turned back to her new patient and gave him a thorough once-over.

Most of his back had been shredded; the scouring was not as deep as it might have been – she had seen it cut to the bone in her time – but it would leave permanent scarring if it wasn't treated properly, and all marks had dirt, sand and gods knew what filth encrusted in them from the whip. It took small skill to realise they would become infected. His wrists were in no better shape; two embedded scarlet lines circled them like bracelets, blood caking the edges of the torn skin. Beckett shifted and moaned slightly, making her mouth pressed into a thin line. It would have been better if he had stayed unconscious for this.

Jortangi returned, both hands holding a clay pot of boiling water; cleans rags over one arm and her healer's bag slung over the other. She grabbed all three in rapid succession without thanks.

"Hold him down," she ordered, disregarding protocol and common sense in daring to give a freeman of high military rank instructions. Thankfully Jortangi had common sense enough of his own, and more importantly despite everything he liked the offworlder, even if they had never spoken, because he knew Lana did and servants were not the only ones who held her in high regard. He moved up the bed and held the healer's shoulders down with both hands.

Lana rummaged in her bag and withdrew a handful of small purple plant, spiky-leafed and pungent, before dropping it in the pot to soak. Steeping one of the cloths in the same pot, she withdrew it, wrung it out, and started to clean the bloody ribbons on the man's back.

Beckett arched his back, whimpered in pain; Lana knew he would have squirmed away if Jortangi hadn't had a firm grip on each of the man's upper arms. She carried on with her work, cleaning the wounds as gently as she dared, which was not much. No trace of dirt must be left behind to carry infection, and she knew the offworlder healer would have appreciated that if he had still been lucid, but unfortunately for them both he was not. So she carried on regardless, washing deep into the cuts while Beckett groaned and sobbed and made sounds unnamed in any language; deep, choking sounds in the back of his throat like growls.

By the time she was done they were both sweating profusely, Beckett as tense as a taunt bowstring and trying to twist around despite all of Jortangi's efforts. The captain was having a hard time keeping the healer still, injuries or no injuries. He glanced over at Lana over their patient's tattered back.

"Not long now." She dipped her hand into the searing pot of water and lifted a mass of purplish gunk from the bottom, smiling as she did so. The herbs were ready. "Try and keep him still." It wouldn't do for her to miss the important areas with this – his body was going to need all the help it could get to fight the inevitable sicknesses that followed from dirty weapons and dirtier deeds.

She squashed the herbs between her hands, moulding them into a tangled lump before wrapping the whole thing in a thing cloth and applying it directly to the wounds. Beckett yelped and tried to writhe away from the still steaming mass, getting himself nowhere.

Quickly and efficiently, she pulled out more hot mats of herbs and wrapped them, pressing them to the rest of his back and both his wrists before taking the rest of the cloths and using them to bandage the compresses in place. As soon as the last dressing was finished Jortangi let go and Beckett immediately tried to roll over and sit up.

Had the man no sense at all? "Thee lay right there," she told him, pulling his arms to make him turn back over. The man smacked her hand away and tried again, to be stopped by a much heavier and stronger hand covered in swordsman calluses. Lana carried on as though nothing had happened. "I don't doubt thy back won't thank you for pushing it into thy bed so soon."

Beckett's reply was muffled by the pillow, but he managed to get across his general feelings towards them both. Lana shrugged, knowing they couldn't very well tie him down – at least not until his wrists had healed.

"Let him up, captain."

Jortangi gave her a doubtful look before letting go, and the healer pushed himself over to sit straight up in bed. Lana nodded, thankful the man wasn't fool enough – or disregarding of his own pain – to lie directly on his back. He glared at her wordlessly.

"Thee keep thyself there for a while, 'till I come back with thy supper." She studied him and pursed her lips a little in thought. "A good broth should do for now. No doubt thou'll be seeing it again sometime tonight." She'd treated punished slaves before and knew very well what to expect. They would all be lucky if he made it through the night without vomiting anything.

Apparently he didn't see it that way. "Don't trouble yourself on my account," he said in a voice laced with sour bitterness.

She shrugged again and gestured at Jortangi to follow her out of the room, where she closed the door on both Beckett and his troubles to speak freely.

"Will he recover?" Jortangi asked bluntly. Sometimes, despite everything, slaves didn't. Sometimes blood loss and shock would snap the fragile bonds of life, or infection would carry them off. Even those that lived ran a risk of being crippled by the drawn-up scars of their punishment, which was why whipping was reserved for only the most serious of crimes below those that commanded instant death; escape, attempted escape, and striking a free citizen. Beckett had committed two of the three, and if Lana could read his face as well as she could others he might commit the third if they weren't careful.

"He is strong. He has a good chance." She frowned. "As long as he is treated well. My main concern lies elsewhere."

Jortangi waited patiently. One did not hurry Mistress Lana; this was learned from infancy in the temple.

"He is new. He knows not the customs. Whether he was truly a slave before or not, I doubt the rules were as they are here." She sighed. "All he knows is that those here have taken him from those he termed friends and now beaten him for trying to return to them. Whatever love for us he had before is of no importance now; it might have been whipped out of him."

"He'll try and escape," Jortangi concluded.

"Doubtless. Thou'll need to lock his door for sure."

He watched her face reform itself into a worried expression. "That's not all, is it?"

She grimaced. "He'll be moody and uncooperative. If he grows fever-sick, violence might grow of it, and I worry whether I might be able to control him then. Even if that proves naught, it is likely he will fall into melancholy, especially if the Exarch proves obstinate about returning him to his people."

"I can help you if he grows violent," Jortangi reassured her. "As for despair, that is his demon to fight." He smiled slightly behind his beard. "You can't heal the world, _ava_."

She smiled back. His form of address was one of pure affection; once, long ago when she had first come to Aru-Moenia she had nursed his mother as a baby when his grandmother had died in childbed. Erusians in the city viewed this as the start of a bond as deep as that of a blood relation, making him her grandson in the eyes of many, including themselves. "Sometimes I need thee to remind me of that, _napa_."

he turned away then, and for a moment she wondered why his face twisted so.

o.O.o

Neboum dreamed that night, horrible dreams of blood-soaked demons with jagged swords that slaughtered his brother, his friends before then turned to him, and just as he felt a white-hot streak cross his throat and warmth gushing down his chest did he realise that the demons were Erusian soldiers with hate-twisted faces.

He woke up with a chilled heart that almost died of shock as their bedroom door slammed open and Ekam came running in, his grey pants and shirt still smelling of kitchen smoke.

"IfoundoutwherehealerBeckettis!"

It took a moment to cut the sentence into coherent chunks, but when he did he swung himself out of bed instantly. "He is alive?"

Ekam shook his head up and down vigorously. "The Exarch had him beaten but he _is_ alive. Mistress Lana is looking after him."

An unutterable relief swept over the boy at those words. If anyone could heal a beaten man, it was Mistress Lana. "Can we see him?"

Ekam deflated. "Probably not," he admitted, but then Neboum hadn't been too hopeful about that. It was likely healer Beckett was going to get sick, and pounded into each of their heads was the rule of Avoid Sick People At All Costs.

But at least he was _alive_. "Mistress Lana will heal him," he signed confidently before biting his lip and glancing at his twin. "I think we should stay until then."

He had been expecting protest – last night Ekam had wanted to leave as soon as possible, if not sooner – so when he saw his brother nod in agreement his heart almost burst with happiness.

o.O.o

Feeding the offworlder had reminded Jortangi of feeding his stubborn toddler son before pestilence had carried away both the child and his mother. Lana had been right in her assumption, as Beckett had plainly lost whatever small amount of trust he had for the Erusians and them in particular. Eventually they had forced the meat broth down him by Lana spooning it into his mouth while Jortangi held his jaws apart with well-placed thumbs in each cheek. Afterwards the man had refused to look at them, keeping his eyes stubbornly on his knees while they discussed what was best to treat him with until the captain had been forced to go back to his duties, leaving Lana to keep an eye on her new patient.

Now, in the twilight of the same day, he wished he had stayed with them both.

Beckett was curled in a half-foetal ball, drenched in sweat and shivering as though trapped on one of the southern ice sheets instead of a moderately well-heated room. Despite their best efforts early that morning, when Jortangi approached the bed he caught a whiff of sickness under the aroma of the healing herbs.

Lana stood beside him, her face drawn with worry. "'Bad, very bad. The infection should not have come so soon."

"Sometimes it does," he reminded her, forgoing to mention what they both knew; that when it did it usually doomed the patient and anyone else unfortunate enough to catch it. This type of disease was notorious for spreading among the weak and injured. As healthy adults they were unlikely to catch it, but it would mean isolation for Beckett and probably them as well, insofar as was possible considering their other duties.

Not that Lana would care. Jortangi had seen her neglect her duties as head cook to look after patients before, and knew that despite all his warnings she would continue to do so.

He watched as she chewed her lower lips and pursed them, before speaking again. "I'll need cold water now, some spotted-leaf herbs and sugar and my stew-pot for brewing tea with. There's not much else we can do for him save ease some of the symptoms and lessen the pain."

He nodded and started to leave. "How bad is this going to be?"

She shook her head.

"I don't know _napa_. I honestly don't."

o.O.o

There was the light of a thousand stars in his head and the heat of a thousand suns in his blood but in the middle of it – the small, dark spot he had discovered when a Wraith had been brought before him and the retrovirus had been ready in his hand – remained cool and calm, a balm against the burning in his skin. From his refuge he could watch himself shrivel in the blaze without caring, happy at the thought he was going to die.

He watched as the flames wept so prettily, spitting red and gold lava like fireworks as they died and were reborn in phoenix-shape to burn him again. He loved the flare as the sparks arched and died, the silvery-grey of the ashes as the cold returned to make him shiver, then the wonderful moment (like blossoming flowers, like a newborn baby) when they emerged from the soot to fly and dance on him again. They traced red lines up his skin, weaving up the stripes on his back in a conga line to double back and burn again. Sometimes they would come and kiss the moisture from his lips, stealing it to form little diamonds on his skin that smelt of salt and pain.

Then the bad people would come, the one with hair that burned with no heat and the bark-skinned woman grown old and withered in the winter of time. They smashed the diamonds and chased away the phoenixes and snatched the pretty fireworks from midair, forcing sickly brews that tasted of limes and lemons down his throat. He kicked at them and bit at their hands, but they ignored him and continued to kill his beautiful friends.

From his cold dark spot he wept and raged, but they took no heed.

The phoenixes said not to worry; they would rise again until the bad people went away and gave up and then, they promised, they would take him home and his friends would come and things would go back to normal. No lemon and limes (Rodney would keep them away), no bad people (Ronon and Sheppard, his wonderful friendly killers, would see to that). They cooed and fluttered their feathers and danced in the dawn to leave behind fire to sear his wounds clean.

He smiled at their play and laughed when the flames reached to melt him into something new. _Goodbye, Dr Beckett. Goodbye, you murdering bastard. You won't be missed_. He giggled and watched as he dissolved to nothing, running in brightly-coloured liquids to the stain the soft blankets.

Then the bad people came back and snuffed out the flames again, gathered up the goo and brought back Dr Beckett.

From the cold, dark spot he cursed them.

o.O.o

Jortangi watched as Lana sponged Beckett's forehead, the damp cloth trickling water down his temples to his ears. The man was red-faced and sweating buckets, muttering to empty air in a heat-slurred voice cracked and parched as the deserts of the north. She dipped her rag into the bowl of cool water infused with spicy yellowgrass and started to wipe away the new sweat droplets again, her face expressionless.

Beckett was getting worse; even a soldier could see that.

"Has he eaten anything?" he asked. Normally forcing food down Beckett's throat was a two-person job, but the fever had weakened him so much lately Jortangi wasn't sure the man could fight off a sqeet, let alone a fully grown woman of Lana's build and strength.

"Some shaupat-meat stew. A little water. He threw up the rest."

He drew closer and knew this as the truth; the smell of old vomit clung to them both like a malevolent cloud, and he could see the new stains on the blankets. They were changed twice a day, and that still wasn't enough. "The Exarch came to see me today. He is impatient about how well Beckett is doing."

She didn't look up. "Let him be. Thou knows as well as I the toll this is taking."

Jortangi knew. "He might force the issue."

"He does _that_ and he loses his fine new slave," Lana snapped.

He shrugged; Narforen had never shown concern for slaves before and never would. "I will keep the Exarch away for a few more days, but after that I can make no guarantees. He will not listen to a guard, captain or no, if his impetuosity gets the better of him."

Lana shrugged as if unconcerned, but her face showed worry. "Find someone he _will_ listen too then."

o.O.o

Carson woke to his own room, his own real room in Atlantis, no Erusians, no guards, no whip-wielding sadists, and he was so _relieved_, so incredibly _grateful_, that he could actually feel tears starting again in the corners of his eyes...

Until a voice spoke up from the corner in greeting.

"So; you are finally awake doctor."

He turned his head on the pillow and sat straight up, heart hammering. From his position in the corner, slouched in a seat with his arms folded comfortably, Michael grinned.

"Welcome back."

He scrambled up and found he couldn't; it was as though his world – his entire _universe_ – began and ended with the bed he was lying on. No restraints or force fields could be seen, only an immutable _fact_.

He wasn't going anywhere.

Then he took a second look, a _longer_ look; seeing the blankets of woven flax-like fibre and rough wool in undyed grubby whites and browns, his legs, clothed in loose grey pants and, most importantly, the tangle of sheets beneath stained with sickness and sweat...

It was not his bed.

But it was the bed he had fallen asleep in.

"Am I dreaming?" he wondered aloud.

Michael shrugged. "Does it matter? You are here now."

"Why... what..." He couldn't _think_, he didn't _understand_ this... "How did you get here?"

"You brought me here."

"That doesn't... that doesn't make any _sense_..."

"On the contrary; I think you know exactly how much sense it makes."

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He did know. It did make sense. Michael had been with him from the time when he had lain in that nameless little tent on the nameless little planet and before – from the moment he had first confronted their pet Wraith-Human, their wonderful experiment, and told him things were _better this way_. That being human was a _good_ thing, not a by-product of an unfortunate piece of bad luck on his part and an ambitious project on Beckett's.

That Wraith had caught hold of his guilt and made a home of it, speaking with his self-doubt and shame ever since.

And he knew, as deeply as he felt that guilt and self-doubt and shame, that it was no more than he deserved.

"How has your life been?" Michael asked politely, for all the world like they were two old friends catching up on the latest gossip. "I hope for your sake it has gone better than mine lately; things have been a little... _excited_. Threats of death and so on. Attempted murder. Betrayal." His teeth bared in what would have been a smile if it had held any trace of humour. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

He couldn't answer. What could he _say_? "Did... did the others...?"

"Doctor Beckett, why are you asking about _them_? Didn't you want to see them dead?"

"No," he whispered. "No, I never did..."

"What a pity." He snorted callously. "I can't imagine they were a great loss for either side."

"Don't... don't you _care_?" It was inconceivable to him that anyone wouldn't, even if logically he knew that if anyone was capable of empathy, it was the one sitting in the corner opposite. "They... they were your _hive_... your _family_..."

"They betrayed me," Michael said coldly. "Why should I regret what was done to them? It was _exactly_ what they deserved... poetic justice, I think you would call it?" He smirked. "Besides, I would hardly think you would _mourn_ the loss of a Wraith Hiveship."

He winced. Michael looked around during his recoil, seemingly ignoring him. "It's tidier in here than I would have expected."

"You should know," Carson growled, suddenly filled with a deep, sickening anger that started in his gut and bloomed in a red cloud to whisper up his spine and pound behind his eyes. "You saw enough of it before."

"Open minds and hearts do not survive long in this galaxy, doctor." The other smiled and leant forward conspiratorially, as though sharing a secret joke. "Don't worry; that won't matter in a while. Soon you will become just like me."

The anger flared. "I won't... I won't become like _you_. _Never_."

Michael's smile became a knowing look. "Too late. You have already started to."

"_Liar_."

"Am I? Ask yourself this, Carson Beckett," and now the half-Wraith's voice had become deadly serious, "before setting foot in this galaxy, would you have ever wiped out half a planet in order to save the other half?"

"I... it wasn't _like_ that..."

"Wasn't it? Then perhaps I should ask: would you ever have used a prisoner of war to conduct lab experiments on?"

"I... I didn't..."

"Would you have changed someone's species against their will, wiping away all their memory, all that made them who they were? _Twice_?"

"It's not..."

"Would you have stood by and let someone _murder_ over a _hundred_ innocent _civilians_?"

"I wouldn't... I _didn't_..." He felt the words dry in his throat, lies upon lies, and hung his head in defeat.

Michael nodded slowly. "You see? It had already begun. Eventually there will be no difference between us, save that one started as a human and the other a Wraith." He smiled again, a sad quirk of the lips that was almost pitying. "Do you remember, in that tent you seem so bitter over, telling me that your sense of empathy towards others had diminished from what it had been before?"

Carson didn't answer, but his expression was telling enough. Michael took the dropped gaze as an answer.

"It _had_ already begun then. Did you never wonder why I kept _you_ alive, instead of Morrison or one of his men?"

"You... you said I was trained to have an open mind..."

"And you were. Like me." Michael studied him closely. "We are very alike now, doctor. We were very alike even then. Did you know when you captured me that I used to be a scientist?"

It hardly seemed relevant now but he knew Michael wouldn't have revealed as much without a deeper purpose. "You were?"

"Oh yes; quite a good one. I studied technology, but as _our_ technology – and in Pegasus there is very little else, as you might have seen – is based on organic constructs, I was more of a biologist as human's would describe the different areas. I worked with the basis of life and its constructs. _Living_ things. I dismantled and rebuilt living organisms – as you did. And... I tried to improve them." His eyes glittered yellow. "As you did."

It was true, but he knew something was wrong about this... he could _feel_ it, just out of his reach, but he couldn't quite grasp at it.

"I'm not like you," he whispered.

"Really? Why not?"

"I'm not... I'm don't..." But he did. Everything Michael had done, he had.

He had tricked, lied, murdered. Betrayed those who trusted him. Failed those who needed him.

Just like Michael.

"Why are you _doing_ this?" he asked dully.

The lines at the corners of Michael's mouth deepened. "I ask myself the same thing when we first met."

A bottomless silence filled the room in the grey part-light.

"I... I don't _care_," Carson said finally. "I... I'm _not_ like you. I'm _not_. I shouldn't even be _listening_ to you... this isn't real, this is just a _dream_..."

"If this is a dream, then I am only a figment of your imagination; a part of you." Michael smiled. "Which means you already _believe_ what I'm telling you..."

He wanted to scream, to cry or howl or run... _something_. _Anything_. Anything that would _stop_ this, that would make him wake up, forget this had ever happened, _prove_ this wasn't real...

But the despair came and swallowed his protests, his strength, the little lies he had told himself in order to sleep at night. It even ate the truth; that in the end, all that separated him from the man sitting opposite was species, an accident of birth, because what meaning did truth have for him now? Would it change what he had done, what he was going to do?

So at the last he let the darkness eat him and spread outwards; devouring the grey-lit room, the alien bed with its stained sheets, the chair in the corner and the half-Wraith sitting in it so that all that was left was nothingness. A void.

Carson fell into the abyss, and he didn't even care.

o.O.o

"_Jort_!"

The childhood nickname dropped from her lips unwittingly, the same cry she had used when her wonderful, wilful little adopted grandson had climbed up on the flat-roofed houses next-door for a dare, or teased the old chained-up guard-gwooth next door with a waving frond of feathergrass in its face but this time in reverse because _this_ time _she_ needed _his_ help.

He had been sitting in the corner grinding spotted-leaf for her special tea when she called, but he was up and at her side in an instant. On the bed healer Beckett was bucking and twitching, as though each limb was tethered to an insane puppeteer who was trying to make him dance without rising. Lana swore in a language she had thought forgotten these past five decades. "He's convulsing. Help me hold him down before he hurts himself."

Jortangi nodded and crossed to the other side of the bed, mirroring her grip on Beckett's arm and shoulder. Lana pressed down with all her strength and started to pray.

It wasn't uncommon for seizures to occur in this stage of delirium, usually forecast by flushed, heated skin and lack of sweating as the sufferer's inner body temperature soared to its upper limits. Unfortunately this was usually a foretelling of another sort in and of itself, since the patient's systems couldn't keep working under such stress for very long. Most people, when seeing a patient in convulsions during wound-infection fever, would call in the priests in preparation for burial rites.

But Lana was not most people.

The man beneath them started to scream hoarsely, a painful, inhuman sound like the cry of a wounded katarung. The captain shouted over the top of it "_How much longer_?"

"_I don't know_," she screamed back. The fits could last anything from minutes to hours, and the longer they continued the less chance there was of Beckett ever recovering. Even brief spells could leave a man a gibbering wreck for the rest of his life.

They both crouched there for what felt like an eternity, pinning down the jerking, sweating, twitching form beneath them with both hands and their whole strength. As the minutes bled into each other Lana had the strangest feeling this was the only real, living place in the world, this little orange circle of candlelight tucked away in the sleeping temple nestled in its slumbering city, a world within a world hanging in darkness like a light-filled bubble.

Then, as suddenly as it had been born, the bubble burst.

Beckett went unexpectedly limp, his whole body slumping down into the straw mattress as though in surrender. Cautiously, unable to believe it might have finally _stopped_, that it was _over_, Lana let go and gestured for Jortangi to do the same. As the captain withdrew, she pressed two fingers to Beckett's neck. For a heart-stopping moment there was nothing, but then a faint fluttering beneath her fingertips made her sag in relief. Then the backwash of adrenaline hit her, and she suddenly felt desperately, unexpectedly _tired_.

"He's alive. What's more, he's going to stay that way." She touched again, just to make sure, and relaxed as she felt what was unmistakably heat fading into warmth. "See here; he's cooling already. 'Tis a good sign."

Jortangi grinned at her. "We pulled him through."

She smiled back. "That we did, _napa_."

The bang of the door opening made them both jump, and the sight of the man standing in its frame made the captain pull himself into a hasty salute, duly ignored by the recipient. Narforen looked around the room in a flickering second, before focusing on the three clustered in the middle.

"What's this?" he asked acidly. "A midnight party?"

Lana felt herself flush inwardly – 'midnight party' held connotations in the lower city she hoped Narforen never found out – but outwardly she was a picture of calm, reinforced with the steel of righteous anger. "Greetings, Most Holy. What brings you out of bed at this hour?"

If Narforen was angry at being addressed so by a cook, he didn't show it. His face might have been carved from brown ice. "Captain. Heading the Blessed Guard from a slave's bedroom now, are we?"

Jortangi stared at a point approximately six inches over the Exarch's shoulder. "No, Most Holy."

"Taking a little time off, then? _Unscheduled_ time off, if so... _illegal_ time off as well, since abandoning one's post at the temple is punishable by exile from the city."

Neither of them said anything.

"And Mistress Lana," he added. "I see no cooking pots here. Is my captain helping you to build a new kitchen?"

Between them Beckett shifted and moaned softly, ignored by everyone. All three's eyes were fixed in each other.

"I must confess I feel... _surprised_ to find my head cook and captain of my guard tending such an errant member of my chattel. Was there nothing else productive you could do with your time?"

_No_, Lana thought rebelliously, but her tongue was wiser than her inner thoughts, and so stayed still.

The silence stretched unbearably.

"Perhaps," Narforen said finally, softly but no the less deadly for it, "this is a... _mistake_. Perhaps you are _not_ here, but are in fact in your headquarters about to oversee the changing of the night shift before you go to your own rooms to sleep." His coal-hard eyes shifted to Lana. "And perhaps my head cook is also taking care of her duties, instead of babysitting a disobedient slave."

There were limits. "He has been very sick," Lana said flatly, only just remembering to add "Most Holy. If I hadn't asked Jortangi to help me, he would have died. It is a miracle he has not."

The Exarch's smile was instant and fierce. "Excellent! And since miracles are most certainly _our_ province, Mistress Lana, it falls so that it should be we who relieve you of your tiresome burden here. I will send a priest directly to take over... unless you have any objections?"

Lana and Jortangi exchanged glances. Lana herself most certainly _did_ have objections, ranging from her less-than-positive view of the religious order's healing skills – which leaned heavily towards prayer and leaving things to the gods' will – to her worries about the possibility of another relapse. Beckett might have dragged himself from immediate danger, but if another seizure struck while she was gone...

Fortunately for them, if not for Beckett, Jortangi spoke. "No, Most Holy."

"Excellent." Narforen's face looked satisfied, although his eyes hadn't softened one bit. "Now that this unpleasant business has been sorted out, I am sure you have responsibilities to attend to."

It wasn't a supposition. Jortangi grabbed Lana's elbow and nodded. "Yes, Most Holy."

"Good." He smiled chillingly. "Why don't you get on with them then?"

The captain hastened to obey, freezing as the Exarch added "And Captain?"

He paused. "Holiness?"

"You did well when you told me of his escape." Narforen's eyes were emotionless stone. "A change of heart now would be a bit belated – and a waste of good talent. Do I make myself clear?"

He mumbled something appropriately contrite and left, all but dragging Lana behind him. As he walked he could feel twin hot spots from her eyes burning into his shoulder blades.

He halted at a safe distance from the healing room, turned, and was slapped so hard he heard his neck creak. By gods, but his _ava_ had a hard hand.

"You betrayed him." Lana's voice was flat and cold as an ice-sheet in winter.

"I heard you talking last night. I upheld the law," he replied with a calmness he did not feel. "As I should."

"'Tis down to you that poor young man is lying fever-weak and injured in a foreign bed," she snapped at him. "What sort of law is that? I had thought better of you."

_Now you know better_, he thought bitterly, but said nothing. "He will heal."

"Thou fool," she hissed. "That man isn't recovered yet, not by a long way, and gods know what will happen to him under the tender mercies of a _priest_..."

"Whatever it is it will be better than what would happen to _you_ under the tender mercies of the lash," Jortangi replied softly. "He's a stubborn man, _ava_; he'll pull through with good food and a change of bandages every morning. Even the most brain-rotten cleric can't blunder in so simple a task."

She glowered at him, in no mood for reassurance. "Thou doesn't know them like I do," she said darkly. "They'll have him up and working by tomorrow night, thou mark me well. That pompous son of a shaupat won't let his new toy rest a moment longer than he thinks necessary – and he's no healer!"

"But Beckett _is_, and he will know how to take care of himself until his friends come for him," Jortangi pointed out. "He won't let himself fall prey to fever again."

"T'wasn't the fever I was worrying about," Lana said bleakly.


	9. Chapter 9

The next chapter was actually my favourate to write, but this comes a closes second. Don't you just love cliffies?

* * *

Waking up hurt.

As Carson dragged himself upwards from the darkness it was to a general feeling of dull throbbing along his back and wrists and feebleness so awful he wondered if someone had replaced his bones with cooked spaghetti. Not only did was everything muffled, as though wrapped in spongy grey cotton wool, but he had a burning sensation in the back of his throat that strongly suggested he had spent a great deal of time throwing up, attested to by a queasy feeling in his rolling stomach and a headache that seemed intent on pounding a strip of lead over his forehead with dull nails.

Unwilling to open his eyes, yet knowing he should probably see where he was, he cracked one eyelid upwards and yelped. The light from the single window burned through his pain like a laser beam. He closed his eyes again and swallowed dryly.

A rustling sound like an old cloth sack reached his throbbing ears, making them burn unbearably. He yelped again.

"Healer Beckett? Are you awake?"

For a moment he was tempted to whisper back "_No_," but he got a grip of himself and instead mumbled "Wha' h'pp'n'd?"

"You caught a sickness after your punishment, healer. You have been feverish for five days."

"Fi' _d'ys_?" Five days he didn't remember, plus the two he did... that was _seven_ days. Seven _days_. Tomorrow was going to be his last day here, and right now Carson couldn't feel happier, pounding head or not.

Right now, though, he had a more pressing notion in mind. "N'd... n'd s'me w'ter..."

"There is a jug and a glass on the table beside you."

_Well thanks for nothing_ Carson snarled mentally. He wasn't sure he could _move_, let alone gather enough marbles to lift up a jug, pour water into his glass and get the glass to his mouth without a veritable deluge happening...

As an experiment, he tried to lift his hand. It felt only marginally lighter than a hypercompact dwarf star.

A fuzzy white blur with a brown blob perched on top moved into his line of vision. Carson blinked and tried to refocus, eventually clearing his eyesight enough to see an elderly Erusian in priest robes he didn't recognise looking down at him with a detached air and an expression that clearly stated he had better things to do with his time than stand there. It wasn't really what the doctor had been hoping for.

"I have other duties to attend to," the Erusian said matter-of-factly. "I will return at sun-down with suitable food. If you feel the urge to try and escape again, be warned that your door will be locked as soon as I leave. I would advise you not to waste your time."

_Escape_? Even if he wasn't so weak he could barely raise his head, from the pain beating out a painful tattoo along his back he wasn't in any fit state to go anywhere devoid of proper medical attention. Not that _proper medial attention_ seemed to be high on everyone's lists here...

The door creaked open, then clicked shut. On his bed Carson lay back, swallowed dryly in a vain attempt to control his raging thirst, and concentrated on breathing.

o.O.o

The Speaker was crying.

It was not a new action to him, despite his own genetics and biological structure prevented him from weeping in all but the most basic secretions from the lacrimal glands in order to clear the cornea or irritating salts and fluids. But he had known the Speaker for years and had learned his reactions coupled with emotions, and lately those had either been of worry or sadness. Right now his link was fuzzed with sorrow and bleak despondency, and even the strongest soothing couldn't calm the little one down enough to find out what was wrong. Eventually he had to give up, as he had before, and let the human sort things out for himself.

In due course the Speaker calmed enough to give him a general impression of what had happened. Someone the other liked and admired was injured – perhaps seriously – and he was unable to help for complicated reasons that he couldn't adequately explain over a link that consisted mainly of simple pictures and emotions. It involved the important, white-clad figures he had shown before in fear and awe, and many metal-clad men with weapons that provoked cold rage among the receivers.

There was little to be done about this; guarded as the city was against attack and the temple especially then helping in any physical way would be tantamount to suicide, and he wasn't prepared to risk that for a stranger. He soothed and comforted, offered hope and ideas, but ultimately all he could do was watch and wait and let his little Speaker sort things out for himself.

He was on his own.

o.O.o

The door creaked open, the sound rasping like a saw across Beckett's brain. The heavy footsteps that followed and the _thud_ of a tray being put down beside him heavily made him moan softly, the sound rising involuntarily from the depth of his raw throat as a foggy beige-coloured blur appeared in his line of sight. Auburn blazed against the white of the ceiling.

"Oh b'ger," he mumbled blearily. "N't _you_."

From outside a voice hissed "Captain, this is _highly_ irregular..."

"If you would like to – how did you put it? _Waste valuable time mothering a wilful slave..._ – instead of leaving then, Tulun, I would strongly suggest to halt the proceedings here." The captain didn't even look around. "If not, then I'm sure you have more useful and interesting things to do that do _not_ involve standing outside like an expectant mother barra bird."

Grumbling, Tulun withdrew, leaving the captain alone. He waited for three breaths that whispered like knowing sighs through the air, before a grinding sound indicated the door shutting and the scrape of clay and wood suggested a bowl being picked up.

"Can you raise yourself?" the captain asked softly. Beckett nodded, the motion making his head reel, then attempted to prop himself up on his elbows. Dizziness and weakness made him slide back down the pillow into a half-prone position

A sigh. "Perhaps not. Open your hand."

He did so warily, feeling something hard and wooden pressed into it. He gripped the spoon and watched as the blur moved towards his left, proffering a darker-coloured blob to rest on his chest. The smell that rose from it made his stomach turn, and he turned his head to one side.

The blur bobbed as its operator chuckled. "It will help you build up your strength. Or do you want to stay lying in bed forever?"

Reluctantly, Carson saw sense and dipped his spoon in the blob before lifting the full utensil to his mouth. The contents tasted of mushy corn mixed with fruit, good enough to make him reach down for more immediately.

"Careful," the captain warned belatedly as his haste sent corn-mush dripping over his chin and a good deal of his shirt. "There is no haste. I have... _informed_ the priests not to let you rise until tomorrow morning. Until then, you _will_ rest."

_And I have a lot of bloody choice in the matter_, Carson thought sourly as he finished the bowl. Rather than reply he chose to repay the captain's interfering with a stony silence. Childish, but very satisfying. It was rapidly broken in a series of quiet yet blistering oaths when the red-haired Erusian proceeded to pick up the bowl and leave without another word. Carson finished the impressive tirade and sank back into the pillows.

_One more day. Just one more. _

o.O.o

Neboum was up at dawn, his gut churning excitedly. This was the last day, the last day _ever_ that healer Beckett was going to be there, and so he wanted to make it as special as possible. And he had a sliver of an idea how to do that...

Ekam was already gone; servants rose well before dawn in order to prepare for the morning duties, and his brother had been tasked with running food to the sentries on duty at the temple walls. He hadn't minded, since he knew it would give Ekam ample time to talk with his sponsor captain Jortangi – and the soldier had taken a much greater interest in his twin since he had found Ekam was able to buy his freedom – but Neboum missed his brother at breakfast that morning. They had never eaten apart in their lives before.

Journeying to the upper slave quarters he gradually felt better, since now he could, in a small way, repay the kindness healer Beckett had shown them. He opened the door at once – Mistress Lana had gifted him with the key once he told her of his plan – and stepped inside, tact forgotten in haste.

Beckett was almost dressed, one of his boots under the bed and his shirt still scrunched a little at the armpits. He jumped and spun as the door opened, then stared at Neboum for a gob-smacked second before breaking into the biggest grin the boy had ever seen a human face support.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, lad! Come to spirit me away?"

Neboum nodded mutely; for once he was glad for his dumbness. The glimpse of the healer's back before he had turned – criss-crossed with diagonal red welts that were still angry and inflamed – would have stolen any speech he could have made anyway, and this was much less awkward. He pointed out of the door.

"You want me to follow you?" Beckett pulled on the errant boot, laced it up, and grabbed his jacket. "Back to the library I take it?" Neboum nodded again. "Lead the way."

He turned and scampered through the door, his feet leading the way unerringly to the only home he had ever known. The heavier tread of Carson behind him – uneven and ragged, struggling to keep up – made him slow and look behind. The offworlder looked shaky and light-headed, but he smiled reassuringly at the boy. It didn't fool him for a moment.

Carefully, Neboum went back and took hold of Beckett's bigger hand in his own small, pale one, before leading the injured healer down to safety.

o.O.o

It was the measure of Carson that he felt no resentment towards Neboum when he was lead like a child himself down to the lower levels and the dusty archives. The lad was just trying to help, and with good reason; Carson would never have been able to keep up with him unaided without falling and most probably hurting himself. So no, he wasn't angry with the young keeper for his weakness and humiliation.

He was saving the anger for Narforen.

Edeus was waiting for them in the library; it looked as though he had been there for quite a while. When they approached him, hunched over his desk in deep concentration, it took three polite coughs from Neboum and a prod from Carson himself before the scholar noticed they were there at all. He started, then relaxed as he saw them.

"Apologises, healer Beckett, but this object really is _most_ fas–"

"I can tell," Carson told him dryly, inwardly amused. Apart from the differences in heights, size and disposition, for a moment the Erusian had reminded him wistfully of a certain scientist he knew when engrossed in a new ancient toy.

"Well, yes." Edeus gave a shamefaced smile, but immediately went back to the object as they sat down at the desk with him. Carson saw the egg-shaped device they had been shown on their tour, his very first day here. The wistful feeling deepened. "We have had it for centuries, but thanks to the priesthood" – he and Neboum shared a look that spoke volumes – "none of them have ever been studied until Narforen took leadership. Our Exarch is surprisingly open-minded about relics."

_Though not about other things_, Carson though bitterly. His back twinged. Edeus didn't seem to notice the scowl that flickered over his face, but picked up the egg-thing and examined it, long fingers spinning it gently.

"From the records – such as they are – we know this was meant for children, but _why_ it was meant for them we cannot tell." He spun it again, making the pearl-like surface reflect the lamplight in a ring of molten white, then stopped and unexpectedly proffered it to Carson. "Here; there may be markings that you might recognise that we have been unable to translate."

Carson stared at it as he would a poisonous snake, but there was no reasonable way for him to refuse it and Edeus was starting to look at him strangely, so he relented and accepted the device gingerly. Colonel Sheppard was the only one who could activate things by touch so far, so what were the chances of this suddenly lighting up like a Christmas decoration?

The device suddenly shone blue, as though a new star had flamed to life beneath the translucent surface, and a beautiful music that sounded of waves and whalesong under a moonlit night filled the room. Edeus and Neboum gaped, awestruck.

_Quite slim, actually..._

o.O.o

Edeus was so excited by the sudden display he temporarily lost control of his voice, stammering like a neophyte giving his first lecture. "H-h-_how_...?"

The healer looked extremely awkward but also strangely resigned, almost as though he had patted a feral bushden and received a well-expected bite to the hand. He put down the device hastily, silencing it. "I don't know."

Scholar he might have been, but Edeus was no fool. If the healer could _do_ that... could make _this_ device work... "Wait there!"

He ran to the open chest Neboum had left for him late that night and picked a relic at random; a cylinder ridged with jade-green stone in an asymmetrical pattern. He ran back to the retreating offworlder and shoved it in his hand. "Make this work."

Nothing happened. "You see?" Beckett said a little unsteadily. "It was just a fluke..."

"Don't lie to me, Beckett!" he snapped more harshly than he had intended, before taking back the cylinder and replacing it with the egg, which promptly lit up again. He saw the healer's eyes widen to contain disquiet and something else entirely...

_Fear. _

He stretched out his hand. Beckett handed the relic back wordlessly.

"I _know_ you are making them work," Edeus whispered coldly, seeing his words deepen the fear to terror. The cylinder was proffered. "Now – _Make_. _This_. _Work_."

He did not have to add "or else." Not after Narforen had so kindly installed a certain amount of obedience in the stubborn offworlder...

Beckett took the relic in shaking hands, before closing his eyes. The ridges glowed sapphire; Edeus had time to wonder idly if the colour had a special significance among the gods before the artefact spilt lengthways, the two halves uncurling like a flower in full sunlight to reveal a mass of crystal chips inlayed with silver wire hidden in slotted compartments. His eyes travelled up from this marvel and locked with Beckett's.

"Put it down."

Beckett did so at once.

"Now," Edeus said deliberately, hiding his elation as his own secret theory, heresy by any other name if revealed too soon, "tell me how you did that."

The offworlder swallowed nervously. He recognised the signs and gentled his voice.

"Whatever you say will not lead to punishment. I swear your words will never leave this room."

And the fool believed him, immediately starting to babble about Ancients and proteins and enzymes and genes, which he explained as a component in the body after Edeus patiently went back over his speech and took it apart, and then how it was innate and couldn't be changed unless he injected some form of serum that might transfer the gene but then again, he warned, might not, although it had to be worth the risk didn't it? And of course it would mean they could trade him back to his people in exchange for the treatment...

"That depends," Edeus said dryly. "How great a risk is there of your technique not working?"

The healer squirmed a little, but then finally admitted that the results were only at forty-eight percent success. The scholar snorted scornfully.

"Beckett, I'm afraid that after today you are worth far, _far_ more than that..."

"Look," the offworlder pleaded in a terrified voice that made the boy Neboum fidget uncomfortably from his forgotten seat, "I know you might want me to stay and help you... study these but really, I'm no _good_ with this stuff, I _break_ it, Rodney or Radek could tell you more about them, I'm not blessed or special or–"

"I am aware of that, Beckett," Edeus said smoothly, before noticing the young keeper finally. He frowned and snapped "Get out!"

The boy ran, leaving them alone. He turned back to Beckett with a smile and a whisper.

"I _know_," he said softly. "Do you think me a fool? One of those bumbling idiots and awe-struck peasants to be hoodwinked by a few tricks and fancy robes? Why else would I study these devices and our history in the company of nobody but a mute slave, when the finest of scholars could be under my command? The gods were not gods, nor are they gods now."

Now the healer was backing away, and Edeus could almost _taste_ the panic surging from each pore. "L-look I shouldn't be hearing this..."

"Why not?" Edeus grinned starkly, feeling his teeth bare to the musty air. "The only one who could charge me for heresy knows." He laughed at the slave's dumbfounded expression. "Why, did you think I would risk myself without the protection of the Exarch? He knows of my theory, and now _you_ have just proven it. Oh Beckett, do you know how _valuable_ this makes you? The things we have still to discover... with your help we can advance further in the next few months than in the past four _years_!"

He stepped forward quickly, grabbing the man's wrist before he could run and hide in the shadows of the shelves. Edeus didn't really think he was foolish enough to try and run again after such a damaging illness, but Beckett looked as though he might do something spontaneous and stupid out of sheer terror. The man stopped as he squeezed threateningly.

"I'm afraid you're going to be here for a long time," the scholar told him, before pulling him back to the entrance. The journey back to the slave quarters would have been swifter with the keeper as a guide – Edeus had only the vaguest of ideas where they were – but he didn't want Beckett to blab anything before he wanted him to. He preferred to keep the unexpected to a minimum.

Eventually, after guidance from a friendly guard and a good deal of luck, he managed to reach the slave's room and gesture to it. The healer hesitated.

"You know where disobedience leads," Edeus said pleasantly, smiling to himself as Beckett went pale and stepped inside at once to turn when he was safely out of reach. The scholar nodded in a friendly fashion. "I would strongly advise you to rest before tomorrow."

With that he shut the door, the lock's echoing _snick_ the only sound in the silent corridor.

o.O.o

When Carson finally fell asleep it was out of boredom; he had spent the rest of the day locked in his room without a meal or a glimpse of a friendly face – _any_ face, really – so there had been nothing left to do in the end than lie down on the lumpy bed and try to drift off until tomorrow, when he was sure (mostly) that this was all going to be sorted out by dinnertime or maybe even lunch if Ronon growled enough.

Consequently his slumber was not deep, a mere floating in the shallows of unformed dreams, so when a weight pressed him down into the mattress and a hand reached under his shirt he was awake _instantly_.

His eyes slammed open at the same time as his mouth, but the latter was immediately covered in a hard kiss and the former only confirmed his worse suspicions.

_Mahalia_.

He bucked, trying to push her off him, but the fever and the long stay in bed hadn't done anything for his strength, and neither had the missed meals. He felt her giggle against his lips, before pulling away to trail her mouth down to his ear.

"_Don't make me go to my father_," she hissed. She didn't need to carry on.

Carson didn't care. As her mouth trailed lower, nipping his earlobe while her hand glided down to undo his belt he gathered all his strength and _shoved_.

The girl flew off him with an unladylike screech, and Carson rolled in the opposite direction instantly, his heart hammering at the thought of what he had just done. As Mahalia rose, her eyes blazing with fury, he decided not to care about that either.

"_How dare you?_" she howled.

His temper, frayed from day one on this miserable, shitty little ball of rock, snapped. For a moment the sweetness of the blood-red fury that engulfed him drove away everything; the despair, the shattered trust, the pity for Neboum and his brother, the _fear_...

Everything.

So it seemed perfectly natural, perfectly _right_, to shut up the spoiled, sadistic little brat as she flew at him screaming with a well-aimed punch to the head.

Mahalia fell like a log.

The fury abruptly disappeared. Reality snapped back.

Carson stared.

He was so _dead_...

o.O.o

He had tossed and turned on his bunk for hours, listening to his brother snore beside him and his various pets either whistle softly in their sleep or chirp and growl to the moonlight streaming through the open window, before he had finally admitted to himself that sleeping wasn't going to happen tonight. Then, as he had risen to go to his special, secret place to relax, he had admitted why.

He was frightened for healer Beckett.

Neboum might have been mute, but he wasn't _dumb_. He _knew_ Edeus was a heretic despite what the scholar-cum-scientist might think, but he didn't particularly care. The man had always been polite and respected his need for his brother and sometimes to be alone, and that was a rarity in the temple. But he also knew the man's ruthlessness, his drive to succeed, and that was why he was frightened.

Beckett didn't know Edeus like he did.

And Beckett didn't belong here. Much as he liked the healer, much as he might have wanted to have him stay forever, he knew that was true. He could see the way Beckett's gaze drifted sometimes, how it went hazy as though staring at something in the far distance, and he knew that was because it _was_. The man's homesickness and longing to be with his friends was so strong it made his throat close with sympathy and his chest ache.

So instead of journeying immediately to his den he decided to visit the healer and maybe reassure him, although _how_ he was going to do that Neboum wasn't really sure. He decided he'd have to wing it.

When he pushed open the unlocked door, he knew suddenly how very right he was.

Beckett was there, Mahalia the Exarch's daughter was sprawled on the floor with a beautiful black eye blooming on her face; for a moment Neboum was so horrified and scared he just stood frozen in the doorway and wondered desperately if this was just a bad dream brought on by the cheese Ekam had stolen for him that dinnertime. There was no way, no _way_ this could be happening...

Beckett startled and spun at the scuff of his shoes on the stone, then his face turned desperate.

"They're going to kill me," he breathed.

Neboum just gaped at him, helpless. The healer was probably right. Narforen was going to be _furious_... Beckett would be _lucky_ to get away with a beating this time... he was probably going to be _executed_...

The thought made him snap out of his daze and shake his head violently; scurrying close to tug at Beckett's hand. If they ran now they might have a chance to stay ahead of any guards that happened to wander by. The offworlder stared, the let Neboum pull him down and out of the room, down to the lower levels. He probably figured the punishment for another escape attempt was the _least_ of his worries.

He was also probably right.

Neboum ran, and Beckett followed him.

o.O.o

Jortangi's day had been long, tedious; filled with reports and forms and all the little bits of paperwork that accumulate on the desks of tired and overworked officers of the law when they least need it to. Consequently he had stayed up far later than usual, yawning and consuming mug after mug of a caffeine-thick brew Mistress Lana made from crackwood bark, rumoured among the guards to be able to dissolve spoons and be used for tarring boats.

Eventually his second-in-command – a skinny, wiry ex-mercenary called Kallik from the eastern provinces – reached the end of his patience and forcibly hauled the captain from his desk and frog-marched him out of the door, with a set of blistering curses and the solemn vow to do unspeakable things regarding his various body cavities if he caught his commander up this late ever again. Jortangi responded with a few well-placed threats regarding the next payday, and by the time they passed through the slave quarters on their way down to the barracks they were both laughing so hard they almost didn't notice the open door that should have been quite firmly locked.

What was inside of course had the sobering effect of several of Mistress Lana's crackwood brews.

Kallik was first inside, kneeling beside the prone girl and feeling for her pulse with professional detachment. "Alive. Just took a bit of a bump."

Jortangi stood frozen in the doorway. Mahalia was injured. Beckett was missing. So far the evidence was strongly suggesting that the offworlder had panicked and run for it, and that meant – he shuddered – that inevitably the man _was_ going to get caught and then killed; because striking the relative of an Exarch meant death, and a _slave_ striking the relative of an Exarch meant death by burning.

Jortangi was not frozen by indecision, but by the _opposite_. He _didn't_ want to raise the alarm. He _didn't_ want to catch Beckett. Personally he liked the man but could watch him die without a qualm, because he was a soldier _but_...

Mistress Lana probably couldn't.

And Mistress Lana was, right now, the most important person involved in this.

His decision followed to the only logical solution.

"Kallik," he said abruptly, "go back and fetch a healer. Bring him straight here, but _don't sound an alarm_, not yet. Tell the Exarch I'm dealing with this alone."

The older man looked up as he started to leave. "Sir? What are you going to do?"

Jortangi paused outside.

"I'm going to find Beckett."

o.O.o

Carson gulped down the clean air outside with relief, his first taste of truly fresh air since this whole fiasco had begun. The night was cool, the stars shining through the black with crisp preciseness and the ground drenched with the golden-white light of the moons. Nearby he could hear the chirping of some nocturnal insect, and the _pitter-patter _of tiny clawed feet scattering from the sounds of his own harsh breathing.

Neboum pulled at his hand, indicating that he should follow the lad down to the treeline. A thick brush of vegetation lay between the city and the water, stretching from the abandoned harbour to the barely-visible waterfall in the distance. Carson was immensely thankful they had come out on the waterfall side, since on the opposite side of the harbour lay only the road and the bridge, both guarded.

Hm, he was getting quite good at being a fugitive.

_Must be Colonel Sheppard's influence. _

Neboum pulled again, and so he started to walk down, trying to ignore the mud sucking at his boots and the obvious footprints they were leaving behind them. Hopefully the brush and fallen leaves would prevent any further tracking once they reached it, and the trees would provide good cover to hide in until his friends were safely in the city. Then... he didn't know what he'd do then. Sneak back in and pray for a miracle, probably.

He was just under the treeline when Neboum froze and whimpered.

"_Beckett!_"

The familiar cry knotted his bowls and turned his bones to ice-water, but it didn't cloud his head. Perhaps, he thought numbly as grabbed Neboum's hand and ran for dear life, he had never really expected to escape. When was life ever that easy?

"_Beckett! It's no use!_"

_Like bloody hell it isn't_, he thought as he deer-jumped over a bush and slipped on the wet leaves behind it. The ground was getting slippery and steep, sloping down to the pebble beach circling the lake, and his footing wasn't all it could be. He heard booted feet thumping behind him, a curse as a log was kicked away and sprayed rotting fungus.

Neboum moaned as they skirted the top of the bank. "It's alright son, we can still–"

Then his footing went from precarious to missing, as the edge crumbled away beneath him and the few, precious seconds he took to push Neboum to safety made his world tilt and turn upside-down, a jumbled mess of loose dirt and stones and rocks and hurting and a final bone-numbing _crack_ as he landed with his leg under him on the pebbles. He stared up at the light-drenched sky and blinked stupidly until the voice pulled his back.

"Beckett." It was quieter. "I have the boy. Come back up and this will be over quickly."

He shifted, the movement sending jagged pain through his nerves and torn tissue. It added a great deal of acid to his voice.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but my leg's broken. Being a doctor, I can tell these things you know."

A pause. A silhouette appeared at the top of the incline, peering down at him, before it crouched and started to clamber down. Carson watched impassively as it slipped and skidded the last six feet, landing with a twin thump on the beach before turning. Jortangi regarded him sadly. "I apologise for what I must do now, healer."

"Only your duty," Carson replied evenly, with a calmness he didn't feel. The thought of another whipping made his skin crawl, but his only other option was to lie out in the open all night with a broken leg, and that might well finish him off faster than a beating. He'd choose pain over death any day.

"Not my duty," Jortangi corrected him before drawing his sword. "My duty would be to take you back _alive_."

Carson stopped breathing. In the silence Neboum's whimper was as loud as a gunshot.

"Look," he said, using his elbows to scramble back towards the water, "I don't know what I've done tae upset ye but–"

"You have done nothing." Jortangi hadn't moved; he seemed to realise as well as Carson there was nowhere for the doctor to run to. "It is because of that I am going to kill you. The only other option is to face the Exarch for your crime. "

His face grew shadowed. "That mean's death, Beckett. Burning alive. Wouldn't you agree that a slit throat is a mercy, given that option?"

_Burning_. Burning _alive_. They were going to _burn_ him _alive_... Carson felt his muscles go weak with fear and strain. "I – my friends –"

"They can't help you. No-one can help you." Jortangi raised the sword and stepped forward. "Except me."

Neboum screamed. It as only when Carson looked up in alarm that he realised the boy wasn't watching them.

He was watching the water.

"No! You can't!" The young keeper started to scramble down the bank, grabbing tree roots to steady himself. "You _said_ you _wouldn't_!"

He heard splashing, the sound of water being parted by something, something _big_, and his heart froze, his muscles seized so tight he couldn't turn, was too _afraid_ to turn. Jortangi's face was the colour of old parchment.

There was a growl.

"Gods protect us," The Erusian breathed. He was staring over Carson's shoulder, his neck craned back, far, far too far back, because it _had_ to be a Wraith behind him, they had _agreed_ it was Wraith, the Wraith that took people after dark and God he had been so _stupid_ to risk this, why hadn't he _remembered_, but it was too late because the thing was growling in a too-deep tone and Jortangi was looking up to a too-high place and was there _nothing_ he could get right?

_If he looked behind him, what would he see?_

Something scraped the stones by his right hand. He looked down and saw claws.

They were bigger than the hand they were resting beside.

A blast of moist, warm breath made his hair ruffle and a chill spread across the back of his neck. It smelt of fish and rotting meat and other things too unpleasant to name, bile and acid and something that reminded him of deep, _dark_ water where blind fish swam and skeletons danced in the currents of their drowned ships. He started to shake uncontrollably as Jortangi angled the sword cautiously and murmured in a strained voice "Beckett_, come here_."

The claws shifted. Carson looked up.

The next was a blurred smear of white fangs and black scales and screaming he only distantly recognised as his own because it had _him_, it had pounced and was _got_ him, ripping open the back of his jacket as he was drawn up and Jortangi was yelling and hacking at it with his sword and it was roaring and he was falling...

The pain of landing blasted him into a grey zone he recognised as severe shock; he could still here screaming but now it was from Neboum, who was yelling something at the... _thing_ above him, telling it to stop, to go away, as though it was a dog that had followed the boy home and was chasing the family cat.

It worked. Amazingly, it worked; the thing was backing away, snake-writhing away from the ineffectual sword-strikes, but unfortunately for all of them it wasn't giving up on its original goal. Carson felt talons curl around his waist, tearing open the lash marks again, and then his world was literally washed in black as it jumped back into the lake with him still clutched in its foreleg. Ice-cold, clanging night wrapped itself around him, making him struggle and kick against the unyielding reptilian limb gripping him, his lungs expanding then compressing as the water pressure crushed them. He held his breath for as long as he thought he could, then as long as he could, before stress and injury opened his mouth and eyes at the same time.

Gazing up he could see the stars above him, wavering and distant, the bubbles spilling from his open mouth in little moons against the speckled sky, exploding in beautiful patterns like supernova and nebulas in the forgotten depths of space.

Carson saw as the stars were drowned in the night sky, and then he saw nothing at all.


	10. Chapter 10

Well, that was certainly the most, er, _impressive_ responce to a chapter yet. I managed to escape the lynch mob and beta this, which should do much to calm certain people's nerves (you know who you are!). This is the squicky bit in the story, so don't read after a large meal, or before a large meal, or if you are ill. I will not pay back the cost of cleaning the carpet.

For those confused about our new dragony friend, read over chapter 3 again. Look, there's a _point_ to posting all those damn chapters...

* * *

The surface of the lake was black and deceptively calm, giving no indication that anything of note had ever happened there. The only movement to disturb the water was the mating dance of nocturnal glowflies spreading ripples in tight concentric circles to mirror the stars above them.

There was no sound. No leaf-rustle, no chirping of tree-dwelling reet bugs, no scurrying of sqeets, no words or movement from the two Erusians stood frozen on the pebble beach, their military-issue boots and thin shoes caked with drying mud, dead leaves caught at the toecaps and treads.

The stillness was broken by a quiet swallow, the hiss of clothing as the smaller Erusian signed a message to the other in a series of quick flicks. His face made the meaning of his gestures redundant.

_What do we do now?_

Jortangi turned slowly. The past few minutes had aged him more than the past thirty or so years, spreading deep tracks to map pain and fear across his face and smudging black under his eyes like kohl. "What do we _do_? What do _we_ do? _We_?" Neboum stepped back nervously as the captain continued in the same, level voice. "_You_ will do nothing. You have done enough already. You have left the city without permission, interfered with the course of justice. You have _aided_ the escape of a _criminal_. That means you should _share his fate_." Now his voice rose, and he grabbed Neboum's shoulders to make the young keeper face him. "Do you understand what I am saying? You should _burn_ for what you have done! That is the _law_! And I... I am to uphold the law."

The boy was crying silently, no sobbing or noise but simply silent tears coursing a path down to his chin. Jortangi released him and started to pull him up the bank, his footsteps heavy. When they reached the top he turned back to the cowering Neboum and lowered his voice to a poisonous hiss.

"Carson Beckett is _dead_." It blasted the silence completely and surely as a winter wind banished the autumn. "That thing that took such an interest in you has killed him, and so there is no-one but I to say what you have done here. And I will say _nothing_, because your brother does not deserve such a stupid, cowardly act to blight his own future."

His voice was laced with contempt as he continued, "But you will have to live with the knowledge that _you_ caused this. _You_ set this in motion, _you_ brought a naive offworlder to the lake in the darkness, and _you_ are responsible for him being mutilated and drowned – if he was _lucky_ enough to drown."

Without another word he spun on his heel and made for the city, his face set and grim. Neboum followed wordlessly, his tears watering the ground beneath him.

o.O.o

He hurt. He'd hurt a lot lately; over the past few months he'd had his mind and body shredded more times than he cared to count, and if the later events of his life were any indication it wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

Carson's lashes fluttered, then flattened as he squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. From the persistent throbbing his broken leg had gotten fairly mangled, and the whip-scars on his back had reopened. Through a crack made by one slightly lifted eyelid he looked around. It confirmed what the dankness and constant dripping sound had started; he was in a cavern of wet black rock, lit by the faint phosphorous of lichen and big enough to house the entire Jumper Bay three times over. Parts were smooth as polished slate, but in others the walls were cracked and rough where chips had been knocked out of them and the floor was scored with long grooves like the tracks of a dragon.

Or _another_ form of monster...

The talons that had gouged those marks appeared in his line of vision, in their entirety as long as his hand and slightly ridged on the inside. He followed them with a fatalistic feeling up to a foot covered in tiny black scales, along a leg as thick around as his chest and a sinuous body that twisted so an oval of obsidian lit with an inner green spark and set in a horse-shaped head that could swallow him whole looked him eye-to-eye.

The thing – Carson decided to call it a dragon for lack of any better term, despite the fact it had no wings and showed not the slightest inclination to breathe fire, which was a small mercy – regarded him gravely from its viewpoint of less than a metre away, rumbling like a storm. Out of a lack of any strength with which to move, Carson stared back and wondered what was going to kill him first; right now the monster was going to have to compete with a leg that was inevitably going to turn septic or gangrenous, whichever got to him first. He sincerely hoped it was the former.

Being eaten alive didn't really sound like much fun.

The dragon-monster-thing glared at him a moment longer, then lifted its head to examine him fully, revealing a lowered frill at the back of its head almost like a loose umbrella. Its snout hovered over his shattered leg, before wedging under his ribs and flipping him over. Carson flopped limply, his feebleness rendering unable to even twitch at the pain that shot through him, feeling it snort a blast of air that almost blew him into the rock beneath him, before he was flipped back over again and carefully sniffed once more. It rumbled deep in its throat, making the cave reverberate with an echoing thunder, then bared its fangs and bit him across the chest.

The scream that followed surprised them both with its strength, making the dragon-thing draw back sharply as though stung on the nose by a wasp. The molten pain of the injury quickly faded, leaving only a spreading numbness and floating feeling. Carson's eyes unfocused as the dragon cocked its head and ruffled its crest with a quick shake before angling its snout down to face him.

The euphoria didn't fade when the dragon lowered its head and started hacking like a cat with a hairball, or when a glob of gooey green slime shot from its throat and splattered over his legs and feet. The dragon carefully licked it over his rumpled clothes and skin, the latter burning as though splashed with artic water to match the liquid ice still soaking him from his inopportune dip in the lake.

It hacked up another slimeball, licking that as well, so by now most of his legs were covered in glop. It moved upwards methodically, while Carson watched in giddy bemusement and wondered if his life could get any stranger.

"I'm being made into a giant bogey," he said out loud, before laughing. The dragon ignored him and continued to smother him in the semi-transparent gunk, cocooning him. _Bad word_, Carson scolded himself. Not cocoon. Not pretty butterflies, just little humans, sucked up in white and wrapped up whiter for feeding. Another Pegasus fuck-up, turning something beautiful into a word of fear and pain. He was in a... storage compartment. Aye, that would do. Storage.

What for, anyway?

The dragon had finished, at least for now; Carson was coated from neck to toes-tips in the gunky-goo-stuff that was now drying into a rubbery opaque membrane in the chilly air. It examined him momentarily, almost like an artist checking for flaws in a particular piece of work, before lowering its head and gently picking him up. Carson grinned dopily and crowed as he swung back and forth. "I'm flying!"

This was _fun_! No wonder Colonel Sheppard liked it so much.

From his vantage point of five off the ground he could clearly see where the dragon was taking him; on of the far walls, more pitted than the rest, and covered with strange grey lumps he recognised instantly as they drew closer.

More cocoons. And this time, Cason was sure it was in the _Pegasus_ sense of the word.

A paw here, a foot there. An ivory splinter of bone, a blackish mass at the bottom of one split from top to bottom, the reek clearly detectable even from so high. Even whatever substance the creature had injected him with couldn't completely deaden the coldness that ran through him at the sight of the butchery before him, the sight of formerly living beings – mainly quadrupeds he recognised as the Erusian equivalent of cows, but some clearly bipedal. Most had been devoured, the remains rotting on the dusty floor of stuck and hanging in the slime that had once encased them.

_Oh shit, it's a bloody larder. I'm about to be hung up in a pantry. _

_I should really feel more scared than this. _

The fear was there all right, but it seemed... far away, somehow. Detached and unreal. Like a dream. He could dream. Carson's eyes started to droop, the breakdown of the anaesthetic in his bloodstream making his thoughts thicken and congeal ready for hibernation. He was scared. Lot's of scary things. Going to get eaten. Should really be trying to escape, shouldn't he?

Maybe later. When he wasn't so tired.

A sucking sound jolted his doze, as Carson was hung on the end of the line the dragon licked more goo over him to anchor him in place, the excess liberally painted over his head to trickle down past his ears. The texture was unpleasant at first, like cold custard, but soon became warming as it insulated him against the nipping air, so he didn't even mind very much when it covered his face, the last plugging his nose and mouth even as he dropped into a deep coma.

Carson slept among the putrid bones, oblivious. From its lair beyond, the dragon watched.

o.O.o

The sickness of hatred and futility was finally over. It was The Day. The Day of Coming Home.

Colonel Sheppard and his team were going to get Carson.

Lorne's team – and Lorne – had volunteered to come with them, and they had accepted. Not because two teams would be needed for this; in actual fact Teyla would have said that the only person they would need were she herself, since this mission was going to require a good deal of tact, something she had not seen any evidence of among most of her comrades. Nevertheless she let the Earth-dwellers accompany her, knowing instinctively that they needed to _do_ something, to shake off the gloom and bitter anger of their friend's kidnap. Sometimes rescue missions were for the rescuers more than the rescued.

Ronon, in any case, would not be left behind, despite most of the medical personnel insisting that a strenuous mission so close to his ordeal with the Wraith would have a bad impact on his recovery. In the end he had dealt with them in the same way he dealt with anything that couldn't be blasted away or intimidated into submission.

He ignored them.

It worked. Carson was probably going to throw seven types of fit when he saw the Satedan, but that was probably the whole point of everyone _going_. He would only be _able_ to throw seven types of fit if they managed to bring him back...

"Chevron seven locked. SGA-1 and 3, you are good to go."

She started to step through after the Colonel, when a voice called out.

"Teyla..."

She turned. Doctor Weir was there; her face was a mask, but her eyes said enough.

"Bring him back."

It wasn't a plea, nor was it an order. It was... a _request_; the appeal of one equal to another, one _leader_ to another. Of one person who was missing a friend, to another who felt exactly the same way.

They were very alike, Weir and she.

Teyla nodded, her gesture calm and her heart aching.

"I will."

She turned again, and the wormhole swallowed her.

o.O.o

The Speaker hated him.

It hurt him. He liked the Speaker; the other's youth and enthusiasm, even in a situation that knew he found unpleasant, comforted him sometimes. It spoke of hope, something he had abandoned long ago.

He did not understand. He had noticed the little one's distress, answered his plea for help. He had discovered the cause and removed it... or attempted to. For some reason the Speaker had objected, but at least one had been neutralised. The opportunity of an injured human right under his nose had been too great to ignore.

Yet now his helpful action had been harshly, even rudely rejected. The Speaker now insisted he _hadn't_ wanted anyone hurt or even really needed their help... despite his panic and plea earlier. He was patient with the little one, because the young could be contrary sometimes and reject the help of their elders and that was simply the way the world worked for both their kinds. All the same, the Speaker's sulking was getting tiresome, and eventually he withdrew to let him brood alone.

It wasn't until noon that the Speaker started to panic again.

o.O.o

Contrary to what most people believed, Ronon _could_ be diplomatic. He felt this prejudice on the part of the Earthers a little insulting; the continued existence of most of them (Rodney McKay in particular) testified that he could exercise control over his instinctive impulse to solve problems with his blaster. He felt they should take more note of this.

On the other hand, it _did_ work so very well most of the time...

He was starting to think this was one of those times. They had been obstructed and stymied from the moment they had set foot through the 'gate, the guards had followed them like hungry arak all through the city, the priests had avoided them as though they carried the plague and their guide Pender refused to speak until that afternoon, doubtless waiting for more specific instructions from his master; the whole affair had a haphazard reek about it, as though the Erusians had been caught off-guard by their arrival. This was, of course, ridiculous, but it still made him wonder.

He had watched Sheppard morph from mildly annoyed to just plain pissed in the course of the morning, a transformation that mirrored his own urge to grab the nearest pasty-faced cleric and _force_ them to give some straight answers for once. That arrogant _kriputz_ Pender was top of his own personal list.

Eventually and surprisingly it was McKay who managed to find a solution to their problems without the need for violent bloodshed. They had been blocked from entering the temple proper – apparently (and with good reason as far as Ronon was concerned) they had reservations about asking the Lantians into their military and religious base in light of past events, particularly since Sheppard (and Ronon) had made it clear they were not about to give up any of their weapons... not in _this_ century.

It was around about noon when they were eating lunch in a small inn recommended by Pender that McKay noticed a teenager, scarcely more than a boy, hanging around the kitchen entrance. His hair was darker than was usual among the Erusians, a dirty blond colour further dimmed by exposure to the constant dust outside, and his expression was two parts resolution and one part an expression of _oh gods what the hell am I doing here?_ Ronon was quite familiar with it, seeing as often as he did on McKay's face for various reasons.

The scientist was as tactful as he always was. "What does that skinny little monster want?" Teyla shot him a reproving look and smiled at the boy encouragingly.

"Hello. Do you want to speak with us?"

The teenager glanced outside, his face clearly showing that he was nervous about the soldiers – and Pender – still standing guard. He said nothing, but pointed at Teyla and then at the door. Clear enough. The kid wanted to speak with someone alone, and had picked the one member person of the group who seemed least threatening.

As Sheppard might say: Boy would _he_ ever be in for a shock.

Beside, the kid needed to learn that small, unprotected people did not make demands of bigger, much better armed people. Ronon stood and said "I'll go." If this was a trap or a joke he could deal with the former and sternly reprimand the latter... _very_ sternly.

The boy did not appear pleased at this, but he acquiesced grudgingly. Ronon nodded to himself. He was learning already. The Satedan rose and moved towards the kitchen, where the heat and noise stopped most other customers from coming too close, and provided an excellent cover for a conversation that was best to remain private.

"Well?" he said, not unkindly, when they had reached the cover of the racket and shadows.

The boy blinked nervously and mumbled something. Ronon simply stared at him. He had found it was the quickest and easiest way of getting information from people that didn't involve split knuckles or sharp edges.

The boy swallowed and said a little louder "I know someone who knows what happened to healer Beckett."

_That_ was news worth hearing... if it was true. Ronon had lived too long and seen too many things to starting hoping just yet.

"Can you lead us to him?"

Another swallow and a nod. "Yes."

"Does he _want_ to talk to us?" Ronon probed. _Something_ was up, or the man would come himself, not send a barely-pubescent boy to do the job for him. The child in question tugged down the hem of his grey tunic and nodded silently. Good. One less complication. "Then what's the problem?"

"He can't come out here," the boy whispered. "The Exarch won't let him leave the temple. But he showed me a way in they don't know about and said he needed to talk to you before Pender did."

Risky. Following a stranger to meet a stranger in a strange location was a wonderful way of being ambushed; their high-tech weaponry was all very well but arrows killed just as fast as bullets. Often the more primitively armed had the advantage when it came to killing their fellow humans, simply because their weapons were silent and used with the skill of a lifetime of experience, whereas he'd seen 'Lantian marines step off the _Daedalus_ mere months after their training had finished.

On the other hand they weren't going to find Dr Beckett by sitting in a tavern all day. He turned to his team – and Lorne's – and made a come-hither gesture instantly obeyed. Everyone had learned that when he bothered to communicate with them it had to be pretty damn important, which was why he never said much. Besides, life was too short to waste time babbling.

He explained the situation quickly and watched as Sheppard mulled over all the points he had, before reaching the same conclusion. "Alright, we'll go but we're coming _armed_. And no funny business or..." He shot a look at Ronon, who dutifully assumed an intimidating stance. He'd always been good at those.

Surprisingly, the boy just shrugged, his fear outweighed by what looked like relief that they were coming at all. Ronon wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. "I was told to take you now. But it might lead to trouble..."

"If we hear something we don't like," Ronon told him, "it will."

o.O.o

Ronon's words would prove prophetic.

Jortangi was waiting for them in the smoky, noisy, bustling kitchen in the lower levels of the temple proper, watched over by Lana from a distance and Neboum, who was huddled in a corner out of sight. He introduced himself as soon as they were seated, earning himself a cloud of hard looks from all the 'Lantians present and the special dislike of the hairy one, who made a point of readjusting his holster upon hearing the captain's words.

Jortangi ignored him. Erusia had trade relations with the Genii and so the weapon was vaguely familiar – and unwanted – but it was really a moot point right now. Just having these people in the temple without permission, let alone _armed_, was enough to earn him a very long, painful death by dismemberment. Getting shot was the _least_ of his worries.

"Thank you for coming," he said softly, addressing them all but primarily the dark-haired man he immediately recognised from the 'Lantians body language as their captain. "I know it must have been difficult for you to trust us after what Narforen plotted at the negotiations." They scowled at the mention but didn't make any other move in reaction. It was a promising start at least.

"The kid said you had information for us," their leader replied warily.

Jortangi nodded, not trusting himself to speak for a moment. This would have been so much easier if he hadn't _liked_ Beckett. "I... do." How could _start_ this? What was he going to _say_? 'I saw your healer and friend eaten by a monster... and I know who's fault it was'?

"Well spit it out," griped the stocky man near the centre, his impatient air barely masking a subtle anxiety.

"I... I am sorry to tell you this." Jortangi had to stop and swallow dryly before he continued, "I am sorry but... he is dead."

There was silence, dark and endless as a black hole, and with the latter's same ability to suck anything light and good out of the universe.

Then the hairy one's gun snapped up to point at his head.

"Ronon!" snapped the only woman present – an Athosian by the looks of her.

"Dead?" It was the stocky man with eyes the same colour as Beckett... as Beckett's _had been_. He sounded as though he had heard a bad joke. "No-no-no, that's not _possible_, he can't be –"

"He is dead," Jortangi interrupted, careless of the projectile weapon pointing at his head and the glares of the 'Lantians. He turned to Major Lorne, who understood, or should do. "He was taken. He went down to the lake after nightfall." A pause. "I am sorry."

"Did you see what happened to him?" the leader asked sharply. His eyes showed no hope, only intentness and a hard glitter. "Maybe he was just captured. The Wraith sometimes store people for later."

The Wraith? Ogres from children's tales who haunted their trading partners but never touched Erusia, a clear sign of the gods' favour. He had never seen one, but he had heard descriptions of them, and he knew that whatever that thing had been... it was no Wraith.

"I _saw_ him as he was taken." He did not look at Neboum. Everyone had decided – 'everyone' being Mistress Lana and himself, since they had kept the truth from the others – that Neboum's part in this catastrophe would be kept secret. "It was not a Wraith. It was a _monster_. A dragon from legend." He dropped his head and studied his hands, clasped together in a death-knot. "I saw it seize him... take him in its claws and jump into the lake. How could he survive that? Would he even _want_ to? He must be dead." He felt his throat close with amazement; had Beckett's death made him weak? "He _must_ be dead."

Silence. The Lantians looked at each other. Neboum watched from his corner with an ashen face. Lana studied them from her stove narrowly, waiting for their reaction. And the hairy one – Ronon – never let his weapon waver from Jortangi's head.

"We need proof," the leader said finally, his voice careful but firm. "We'll need to get a full story from you and see the place where it happened. Can anyone take us there?"

"Only I know, and I am not allowed to leave on threat of losing my rank and post here." He saw their faces fall and felt his mouth twist sideways in what would have been a smile if it contained any trace of humour. "Do not concern yourselves. I will take you. My career is over in any case; it will not be long before Narforen finds _something_ to lever me out of the temple with. I would rather leave before I am thrown out."

"Bully for you," the stocky one muttered. No-one reprimanded him, but the Athosian smiled thankfully.

"We are in your debt."

Jortangi laughed hollowly as he rose. "No, dear lady. You will not say that once you have heard my tale in full."

o.O.o

It is the nature of dreams that the nonsensical will make sense and the absurd taken on trust.

Belief is paramount. When a dreamscape changes this is normal. When the dead walk, this is to be expected. Time stretches; what seems like a minute might be an hour, what seems like a day might take only a few seconds.

For Carson, it was the former.

It wasn't a particularly frightening dream, or even a very interesting one. In fact it was more of a memory; of all the ones his mind could have picked he was sincerely glad it had chosen this one.

In it he was in the copse near his childhood home in Scotland, the site of many a game of hide-and-seek among the brambles and weed-filled ditches that criss-crossed the thickets like old scars. Swaying back and forth on the old swing he had built himself from pilfered rope and a piece of twisted wood. Content.

Except... there was something missing.

He got up and started to look for it.

The sun set. The woods grew darker.

And he still couldn't find it.

Owls hooted. Fire-flicker eyes watched from the undergrowth; hot, moist breath created clouds low to the ground. He shivered in the cold night air and decided to go home, but when he turned to find his way out the path was overgrown with thorns.

There were no stars.

Fatalistically he waited for the trap to be sprung, for the monster to leap out, but nothing happened. And somehow that was the worst of all.

In the night, Carson sat down and hugged his knees, shivering. He was alone.

_Alone._

It is the nature of nightmares that only the worst fears come true.

o.O.o

Ronon knelt, stirring the pebbles with his fingers. The beach was smooth and unmarked save for a few driftwood logs strewn around and this particular area, where deep slashes on the shingle had scattered stones and cut down to the gritty dirt beneath. A wide swath of disturbed stone showed where Carson had been scrambling away from the embankment, a set of deeper dents where Jortangi had stood. Part of the incline was collapsed, a mound of loose earth at the bottom marked with clear footprints. _Small_ footprints.

He looked up and watched as Jortangi explained what had happened. How Beckett had run, fallen, tried to crawl away. How the monster had come from the lake and taken him.

How, how. Not _why_.

And it didn't explain the third set of prints, prints so small they might belong to a child.

In his mind's eyes he saw the scrawny teenager who had found them and led them to the temple. Might be his footprints. Might not.

Ronon didn't really care. The Satedan was convinced that one mystery solved would complete the others, and he knew how to do this.

He got up, walked to the Erusian, and seized him by the throat.

"You're lying." His voice was soft, his tone anything but. "Tell the truth in three second, or find a way to grow back your balls."

Jortangi didn't struggle or start to whimper, earning a small number of points in Ronon's eyes for common sense and a few more for courage. Not that it would matter in the long run, if he lacked the intelligence to be honest with them. "I am not lying. The monster took Beckett."

"Who else was with you?" Ronon demanded. Everyone was looking at them but – he was pleased to notice – no-one was stopping him. Evidently diplomacy wasn't an issue here. Just as well, really.

"No-one..." Ronon brought up the gun, not high but high enough. Jortangi flinched and amended, "just a slave. A child. He had nothing to do with this."

It wasn't the whole truth but it was enough and Ronon knew when to back off. "Carson was trying to back away from you." It wasn't really a question.

"I was going to take him back for punishment," Jortangi said evenly and completely fictitiously. Ronon just narrowed his eyes and the captain read his mind. Possibly that was the reason for his face paling. "I... I had his best interests at heart..."

"Bullshit," Sheppard put in, entirely unnecessarily. "If you were, why would he run?"

"He had... he would have..." Jortangi swallowed, the action hampered somewhat by the fist around his throat. "He struck the Exarch's daughter!"

"Carson?" asked McKay. "That's impossible. He doesn't even swat flies."

"He hit her, I swear on the gods," the Erusian said desperately. Ronon didn't think he was lying. "The punishment for that is... severe."

There was a pause. "How severe are we talking here?" Sheppard asked finally. "Lifetime in prison? Withholding of all caffeine for a week?" McKay shot him a filthy look.

Jortangi closed his eyes and whispered "Burning."

There was another, much longer pause. Ronon's fist started to tighten and the Erusian gurgled. No-one seemed to care that he was suffocating until Sheppard sharply told him to drop the man. When Ronon did it was with the disgust of someone who finds themselves holding a dead rat by accident.

If Jortangi felt any relief, it was short-lived. He looked up into the muzzle of a P-9 and the glacier-cold eyes of Sheppard.

"Burning," the 'Lantian said flatly. "You were going to _burn_ him _alive_. _Burn_ him. And for what? Slapping some rich kid?" The finger tightened on the trigger and Ronon brought his gun up. He didn't want Sheppard stealing his kill. He owed Carson too much to just let this slide.

"I _was_ going to kill him." Jortangi's voice was dull; he seemed to have no more fear left. "A quick death. H-he deserved that much. But..." his voice trailed away and he waved an arm at the lake. No-one needed to ask what he meant.

"You son of a _bitch_." Ronon wasn't sure what a bitch was yet, but Lorne didn't make it sound like anything good. He added his own input in a whisper "Grow back your balls _and_ head."

"Ronon..." It was Teyla. Teyla the peacemaker. Teyla the diplomat. She looked controlled as ever, but he knew her well enough now to see anger in the lines of her mouth, the tightness of the skin around her eyes. She wanted to avenge Carson as well, but blasting away this washed-up ex-guard wouldn't change anything, and they both knew it.

_The difference is I don't care. _

But Sheppard listened to her as well, and he ordered them to stand down. Ronon turned to study the lake as Jortangi rose slowly, not trusting himself to watch as Carson's would-be killer walked free. He looked and thought.

Carson had saved him. Twice, no three times; he had extracted the tracker when they first met, killed the Wraith, and operated after his capture without a stop for rest or food. He had trusted Ronon, despite his unpromising start by holding Teyla and Sheppard hostage. Had even killed for him, despite being a doctor with no real combat training. Carson had been one of the people that Ronon trusted completely; that list was not a long one, and it didn't hold many still living.

And now Carson was dead.

He had failed him. Failed him as he had failed Melena, failed his squad, his _world_, failed Keturah's daughter and villagers, Keturah himself. Carson was dead, gone forever, and he hadn't been there to help or save him.

Ronon howled with fury, spinning and blasting one of the driftwood logs to splinters. No-one said anything.

o.O.o

"How good of you to join us." Pender's voice was pleasant, but brittle; they were over an hour late getting back to the inn and didn't really care. It showed. "_Finally_."

Teyla could hear Ronon grinding his teeth audibly behind her, a nasty scraping sound like two rocks being rubbed together. It set her own teeth on edge, but she wisely ignored it. By mutual consent she had been chosen to front the negotiations, or lack of them. No-one else was feeling especially diplomatic. Teyla had neglected to mention neither was she.

"We were delayed by matters of great urgency," she replied evenly.

"Like finding out our friend got eaten by an overgrown fucking crocodile," Rodney snarled behind her before turning away in disgust. Pender glared at him in anger and dismay, before snarling at her "_Who told you this_?"

"It no longer matters." She had no wish to see even Jortangi subjected to the barbaric punishments of this world, especially considering the warning he had given them. "We know now. All we wish to do now is leave."

"_Don't try to judge them for their actions," Jortangi had warned them on the way back after Rodney had ranted about what he was planning to say to the 'primeval examples of festering _shit'_ hosting them. "Narforen will not stand for it, regardless of what has happened. He will simply say it is your own fault for selling him a disobedient slave."_

"_He wasn't a fucking slave!" _

"_I know." Jortangi's face was a picture of misery. "So does he I think."_

_They shared looks. "Why all this then?" John had asked bluntly. "Why not just admit he was wrong and send Carson back...?"_

_Instead of keeping him, Teyla completed, keeping him and beating him – oh yes, Jortangi had told them much after Ronon's spontaneous explosion at the water's edge – and letting him run away again, letting him get eaten. If she had not been Athosian and a native of Pegasus she would have bemoaned the senselessness of it – the sheer _unfairness_ of such a good, kind, caring man who had survived so much being devoured by, of all things, a giant lizard. _

"_And lose face?" Jortangi had countered. "Besides, he was valuable. Last night I thought he would burn, but now I am not so sure. Certain scholars among us were... unusually distressed to hear of his death."_

_They had pressed him for details, but he had refused to expand any further than "It is over now. And I was not sure in any case. Do not mention this to _anyone_."_

_They had agreed. Jortangi was in enough trouble as it was, and in any case it didn't really matter. _

_Not anymore. _

"And the agreement?" Pender's face had lost its anger and gained a cunning edge. "Naturally your special status of trading partners will have to be revoked; your payment was faulty and rebellious. He died of his own stubbornness, and unless you can replace him..."

Rodney's head snapped around so fast Teyla winced at the cracking sound. "_Replace_ him? Replace _him_? You think we can just _replace_ our friends, you miserable little–"

"We will not replace him," Teyla cut in. She wasn't sure what punishments Rodney would merit if he started insulting the First Speaker, and she was sure Carson would have wanted them to find out. "We have no objections to ordinary status, as long as our scientists are permitted to return and study what they need to in the future." There was little hope of a ZPM, according to doctor Zelenka, but that didn't rule out useful technology and they sorely needed anything they could grab hold of at the moment.

"There will be additional charges," Pender warned.

"Whatever." John spoke for the first time, sounding sick and tired and angry. "Fine. We'll pass it on the El... Weir and _she_ can decide. _We're_ going home." His narrowed to slits. "Unless you have any objections?"

Pender looked at them. Teyla saw him take in John's stony expression, Lorne's shocked grief, Rodney's simmering anger, the harsh enmity of the marines and Ronon's hostile glare before saying smoothly "Of course not."

"We are thankful," Teyla said quickly, before anyone else could get a word in. Her own fury and bitterness were burning but easily controlled; like the others she wanted to leave here _alive_. As Pender grunted and turned away, dismissing them, she held her head up rigidly and walked outside. The others trailed after her, their footsteps somewhat louder than they might have been, their legs a little more stiff. The First Speaker's escort watched them leave warily.

Rodney looked as though he were about to launch into another tirade, but thankfully John stopped him dead. "We say _nothing_ until we get out of here, got it? So we _do_ get out of here."

The scientist had no answer to this, so he subsided in a spate of furious muttering and a stomping walk in the direction of the 'gate. The rest followed slowly, Ronon and Teyla exchanging glances as they started to walk. Mostly Rodney was as soft and timid as a newborn kit, but anger made him grow fangs and claws, especially verbal ones. Even Ronon had been impressed at the torrent of insults on their way back to the city, some of which even _he_ had never heard before.

"Hey." It was John. Teyla started as she realised she had been walking in a trance, avoiding the massing crowds by accident and luck. "You alright?"

_No_. It was small, quiet word inside that he would never hear, because he didn't need to. Everyone was grieving, everyone was suffering, and no-one needed to know how much she hurt inside or the mourning that never really got any easier no matter how many times she went through it.

"I am fine," she lied easily, then sighed. "I am only wondering how I am going to tell Dr Weir of this."

o.O.o

He was patient. He was too old to be otherwise.

The one he was watching was _not_ old. It was not patient either; through the semi-transparent rubbery membrane covering it he could see it squirming, twisting in untold nightmares, mouth working soundlessly as though willing itself to scream even through the covering. The cocoon was all that was keeping it alive yet it still struggled, although whether it was aware or not was another matter entirely.

He pressed his snout-tip to the tough outer shell, the sensitive nerve-endings picking up the other's condition and general health. Complex data streams whispered through his brain, feeding information directly to his cortex without the need for actual thought. It was so much simpler that way, and much more direct.

It was in good enough health, considering. It hadn't gotten any worse anyway, which was really what this was about.

It wouldn't do for it to die.

Not yet, anyway.

o.O.o

The rush of the wormhole springing to life brought Elizabeth down to the control stations at a run, her gaze fixed dead-centre to the undulating rush of the water-light-barrier that linked one world to the other. It rippled: once, twice, three, four...

That was as far as she could count before abandoning her post and rushing to the gate room, the slapping sound made by practical, the slapping sound of her rubber-soled plimsolls (she had left all her high heels behind with a secret sigh of relief; the narrow shoes had been pretty enough but hurt like hell and were a devil to walk in) mingling with Chuck's call "SGA-1 and 3 IDCs!"

"Let them through!" she shouted back down the com, uncaring. She would have welcomed a Wraith army if they had had news of Carson, _two_ armies if the news was good.

The ripples contracted, then burst open; eight figures walked through and she stared in hope – vain, foolish hope! She should have learnt about hoping in Pegasus by now... – that a ninth figure would come through, complaining about the alien food and swearing he would never go through another bloody gate in his life and she would smile and apologise but she _wouldn't_ cry, she _wouldn't_, and the fact that her eyes were wet had _nothing_ to do with this...

The water-wall flickered, and vanished. Despite the size of the group, all seven men and one woman managed to look small and alone.

The one woman looked up, her face lost.

"Dr Weir," she said. "I'm so sorry."


	11. Chapter 11

Wakey wakey Carson, today's another day...

* * *

Psychology was a bitch.

John distrusted it. What went on in a man's head was his own affair; maybe it might lead to problems later but that was later and hey, it might never happen. He could understand the need, the _necessity_ of making sure someone wasn't several cards short of a deck before going on a stressful mission, but there were other ways. You judged by actions, you second-guessed based on past experiences, but the secret workings of someone's mind should _stay_ secret.

Sometimes he wondered if this was based on his own past experiences, particularly that fiasco with Aiden and the Wraith bitch on the Hiveship. The feeling of having sharp claws being dragged through his living brain had been only moderately unpleasant compared to the complete lack of privacy during the experience. For a few seconds – far too long – the queen had known everything there was to know about John Sheppard.

He was far too polite to point out to Katie to parallels between that and what she did for forty thousand a year, give or take. There was such a thing as tact, after all.

So he put up and shut up, despite a strong urge while walking down this noon-lit corridor to either run like hell in the other direction or sit down like a toddler and refuse to move any further. To be fair the first was impractical – where was he going to run to in a city surrounded by water? And the second didn't bear thinking about, since he was fairly certain Ronon at least could pick him up in one hand and _carry_ him to Heightmeyer. So he kept walking, rehearsing what he was going to say.

He'd had plenty of practice, after all...

_Thwack-twhock-thwack-thwack. _

His ears perked, the clatter of wood on wood grabbing his attention as the sound of a can opener might draw the attention of a cat.

_Twhock-thwack-thwock-thwock._

His head turned, away from Heightmeyer's office – she could wait – and to the right, where a passageway beckoned invitingly.

_Thwack-thwack-thwack-twhock. _

John followed the sounds of violence down the corridor to the training rooms, where two figures spun 'round and round in a violent dance that promised, at the very least, badly broken bones if one of the dancers misstepped. The sticks were revolving like twin suns, but twice as deadly if they caught you.

_Thwack-twhock-thwack-_thump

One of the dancers doubled over, too out of breath to curse, while the other twirled her stick reflectively and regarded him with wary concern.

"Are you injured?"

Ronon gulped air through nose and mouth, straightening in a second.

"Not yet."

Which John correctly interpreted as: _Not enough_.

The dance resumed. _Thwack-twhock-thwack-thwack. _

Maybe he'd stay for a while.

o.O.o

He was swimming. Or perhaps floating. Or perhaps neither of these things, since in space all motion was relative. He decided to count the things he did know, in order to work out some discernable facts about his predicament.

He was in a void. It was black. There was nothing in it but him. He couldn't feel anything; no heat, no cold, but then again no pain or any real emotion, no _hurting_. Just... nothing.

All in all, it was an improvement.

But there _was_ something. He had just noticed it, a clingy, gooey feeling on his face and arms, and the feeling of being wrapped in a damp blanket. Mhm. Maybe he'd been camping with his Uncle Robert and brothers again, and the tent had blown away. It had done that once, and he'd got soaked and freezing before Bert had called the whole thing off and taken them home to dry out. He could still smell the cottage pie and onion gravy they had had for dinner that night.

He realised he really should be more worried about the fact he couldn't possibly be breathing, but nothing especially bad had happened so far and so he didn't really care. It was Uncle Bert's problem, and he was quite happy to let the unreasonably active fifty-year old sort things out while he lay, if not dry them still warm and snug in his bedroll.

Only Uncle Bert was dead, and he had been in his seventies when he died, riddled with cancer. So this was _wrong_.

Carson woke up.

The world was green and distorted, as though he hung inside a damp, viscous emerald and looked out through the facets, and it was harsher than he remembered, a hollow stone cavern with pools of water scattered in chaotic patterns across the jagged floor. He opened his mouth to call for help – not that he could see anyone – and said... nothing. His mouth was stopped with glue, and it tasted _foul_.

He opened his mouth again, struggling and screaming silently, thrashing against the wet sack holding him, glutinous liquid running down his throat to choke him as the void took him back...

Carson woke up.

His world was shuddering and jolting, spinning like a top in a washer, and he would have thrown up if there had been anything to throw and anywhere to throw it to. Dizzily he watched through the jellylike goo covering his face, his nose, his mouth (_don't think about it! _he shouted to himself) as he rolled, turned and dropped.

The goo was good for one thing; it stopped the sharp stones that stabbed at him from the cavern floor from hurting him any more than few bruises. A shape loomed above him, black and hideous, baring blurry white fangs that tore the seal away from his face and split the cocoon down over his body, leaving him damp and squirming as a newborn chick from an egg. His gasped and swallowed the fresh air greedily, savouring the chill and sharpness.

The shape focused into the black-scaled dragon-thing, just at the end of a meal of greenish gunk that Carson recognised with a bite of bile in his tongue as his own cocoon. _Waste not want not_, and as he was thinking that the last of the goo was sliding down its throat and it was looking at him as though seriously considering having him for dessert.

_Oh crapcrapcrap... _the terrified whine in his mind ran on a loop as he scrambled back on his butt and elbows, the dragon-thing easily halting him with one giant claw then lowering its head down to the writhing, wriggling human and nipping him on the arm...

Carson woke up.

He was warm, and that was good. He was dry, and that was good too. His leg wasn't hurting and neither was anything else, and that was the best thing of all. Yes, he thought dreamily, everything was good, and if he stayed very still and breathed quietly maybe it would stay that way.

The only problem was the bulky duvet over him. It was cosy enough, but it was heavy and lumpy, and the material was strange, like old cracked leather. He pushed at it sleepily, feeling it shift and gently flop down near his abdomen, a rumbling sound like distant thunder accompanying the movement. Hmm. Might rain soon. Better make sure all the windows were shut. Last time he'd left them open the paint had peeled from the walls...

He opened his eyes and saw black scales.

A minute later he thought muzzily _I really should be more scared than this_.

The dragon snored again, its tail curling tighter around the diminutive doctor trapped in its coils. The sound reverberated through the immense cavern, sounding a lot like, yes, a thunderstorm. Well at least he wasn't going to get wet this time, unless it had more dips in the lake planned for him.

Part of him fully expected to die, but it was a very small part. If it wanted him dead it had had plenty of time. Evidently the cocoon was less Pegasus-like than he thought.

But it had certainly been similar, because he didn't hurt. His leg had been broken, he'd almost drowned, but all he had was a few bruises from being dropped and stiffness due to the fact he had been sleeping with half of himself on a cold stone floor. His backside really _hated_ him for that.

So the cocoon had healed him. But those other... beings had died.

Had they just succumbed to injuries, or was he missing something here?

Carson wriggled, trying to free his arms from the weighty tail pinning them down. The dragon grumbled and stirred sleepily, lifting its huge head and looking back down at him with what could only be called irritation. He had a distinct impression that if it could talk it would be telling him to go back to sleep.

He grinned weakly. "Er... hi?"

It regarded him mutely. He tried again.

"I... I don't suppose you're going to let me go, are you?"

It snorted and laid its head down again, translucent lids closing over to cover the opals of its eyes.

"Thought not."

Carson settled down himself. There was nothing he could do or say to change his situation.

So he did nothing.

A few moments later Carson was asleep again.

o.O.o

When he woke up both tail and monster had disappeared, leaving only wet dripping rock and echoes. It was chilly; he shivered in the bite of the air and hugged himself to conserve warmth, almost wishing the dragon would come back as a handy source of heat.

As the wish fled to the cavern roof it was fulfilled, the dragon appearing to form itself out of what Carson had assumed was another polished stretch of rock and now saw was in fact a large pool of water big enough to hold a decent sized whale. It was carrying something in its jaws, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought it had found someone – someone from Atlantis, hell maybe even John or Rodney – but when it dropped the limp form he realised it was four-legged, with stripy green-and-brown fur. One of the Erusians cow-equivalents.

He looked up at the dragon. It looked back.

"Dinner? Or maybe lunch..." It didn't really feel like breakfast, and anyway he had never been one for meat first thing in the morning. Just three cups of coffee and maybe some fruit if his conscience twinged and made him think of the disservice he was doing his blood vessels.

This was all to a moot point anyway, since he had neither fruit nor coffee at the moment, nor indeed a knife or even a sharp piece of rock to tear away the hide with. He looked up at his captor and shrugged.

"Sorry. Not all of us have buggering big claws and teeth you know."

It cocked its head and rumbled a dire prediction, or at least that was what it sounded like. Carson decided to play along.

It wasn't like it could understand him.

"Yeah, I know it's daft. Humans, eh?"

It grunted and sighed, the air blasting his hair away from his face in a gale of fishy breath and a faintly unpleasant aroma of old meat._ 'Dog breath' indeed. Almost like our Bessie, and she could be bad tempered enough when annoyed. Almost took the leg off the postman once. Oh lord. _

"It's not like I can help it, lad." He decided on assuming it was male, since the crest ruffling behind its head reminded him of a display crest on some sort of lizard. It – he? – snorted, then lowered its head and started to tear at the carcass with sharp fangs, carefully pulling a strip from the flank and holding it at just about head height on Carson. It dangled lifelessly, gleaming wetly in the light of the sickly lichens and phosphorous fungi.

The doctor eyed it uncertainly. Black puddings and haggis were all very well (in truth he had never really liked the latter and only ate it because his mum prided herself on her recipe, not that he would ever tell Rodney that), but a scrap of raw meat covered in who-knew-how-many types of alien bacteria swimming in the saliva of his captor and the blood of the poor wee beast itself was another thing altogether. Just _thinking_ about eating it made him feel ill.

On the other hand there was nothing else here and he was _starving_. Besides – and he didn't want to think this but it surfaced inevitably – it looked as though he might be staying here a while, and under those circumstances starvation might kill him quicker than disease.

_And there's always being cocooned, isn't there?_

He grimaced and accepted the meat, chewing gamely and trying not to choke on the rancid taste. The dragon closed its first set of eyelids and hummed, almost cooing, as he swallowed the strip with a gasp and smiled weakly.

"Lovely."

It reached down and tore off another piece, this once dripping with running bits of fat. Carson sighed.

_Might have spoken too soon._

o.O.o

Freth were dumb. Not actually stupid, but _dumb_, mute as any animal, and although they might have had above-average intelligence for a creature their size, they certainly couldn't understand human speech, especially the silent sort.

Neboum stroked the soft, silvery fur, gazing listlessly into the distance.

_Healer Beckett is dead. _

He couldn't quite make himself believe it. He'd never really lost anyone before; oh, fellow slaves he knew had been sold and moved on but everyone he actually cared about and liked – Mistress Lana, Ekam, his animal friends – was still there, with him.

Apart from Beckett.

_It's my fault._

Edeus might have saved healer Beckett from punishment. Laws were all very well, but he had been an offworlder, completely ignorant, and valuable. He had watched as the scientist cursed and swore when he learnt of the terrible news, and it had seemed a little excessive for a dead slave.

_Dead because of me. _

He sniffled slightly, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand while the other continued to stroke his friend. Ecstatic purring came from under his fingertips as the freth enjoyed the massage.

_I shouldn't have run. _

_I shouldn't have taken him. _

_I was so_ stupid.

Jortangi had been right. Neboum had seen the guard leave the previous evening; his face had been hollow and downcast, resigned to civilian life in disgrace. He had been lucky not to be executed, but the loss of one slave wouldn't merit that and death would have drawn attention to the fact that Beckett had been special. The last thing the Exarch wanted was for people to realise he had let such a valuable slave escape from under his nose.

_My fault. _

It was an inescapable fact. He had led Beckett to his death and called for help to the only one he had been able to turn to, and then they had killed him. Smashed him and drowned him, maybe even eaten him and all because Neboum had been stupid not once, but twice.

And that made it his fault.

He might have well have drawn a dagger over the man's throat.

_I killed him._

His vision blurred. It was strange, he thought as he hugged the freth to him, that though it was his brother who wanted to be the soldier, it was _he_ who had killed his first man.

o.O.o

Dinner-or-maybe-lunch was over, and Carson was glad. The raw meat wasn't settling well in his stomach, causing a series of very painful and distressing cramps that had him curled in a ball and moaning involuntarily as a fresh wave of pain swept over him. The dragon lay beside him, almost like a mother cat nestling a kitten between its paws, regarding him with what almost looked like concern and rumbling whenever he made a noise.

It really did remind him of Bessie, a bad-tempered dog of uncertain parentage but whom Carson had often suspected of being at least one-eighth Rottweiler – the fraction relating to the jaw, anyway. Despite her habit of eating the furniture and attacking anyone she didn't know by shredding their trouser legs, Cason had liked her. After a bowl of warm tripe and a tummy-tickle, she had really been quite sweet.

He thought of tickling the dragon's tummy and groaned. _Note to self: Do not start thinking on a complaining stomach. Bad ideas inevitable. _

It grumbled above him, nudging him in the chest hard enough to make him fall over. He landed on his back and was immediately swamped by a scaly jowl and neck as it lowered its head and closed all three eyelids. He kicked it irritably, resulting in nothing more than a bruised toe.

"Do ye do nothing but eat and sleep, ye great eejit?"

It drew back the lids of the eyes facing him and snored pointedly. He almost laughed, before scolding himself for being so ridiculous. It was a dragon... thing for heavens sake. It wasn't as though it could understand him.

It had still been kind of funny though...

"Lazy git," he grumbled finally, settling down. It didn't reply.

o.O.o

Sleep for once didn't visit the good doctor that night, kept away by a combination of hard lumpy rock underneath him and smelly dragon-thing above him, not to mention a set of stomach cramps that had him curled in a shivering ball all night. As soon as the dragon woke and rose the next morning he rushed over to the pool and... purged himself of the problem, as it were.

The only problem was that now he was sickeningly hungry instead of just plain sick.

He the distinct impression the dragon was worried about him. Certainly it had seemed alarmed when he was throwing up into the tarn, although that might have been disgust at the pollution of its front door than anything else. But it had rumbled and hummed when had staggered back from the water and flopped down in exhaustion, before ambling over and slipping through the obsidian mirror with barely a ripple to mark its passing. He hadn't seen it since.

Lord, but he was tired. And famished. And sore.

He started to fantasise about food unwittingly, just to pass the time. Fish and chips. Pancakes and sugar. Smoked kippers. Sausage casserole. Deep-fried Mars Bars, he _missed_ those; everyone had thought he was mad when he tried to make a batch in the city's kitchens and the results had gone wrong and stuck to the frying pan, earning him an earbashing from the cooks.

Ginger biscuits and tea. So they crumbled just right.

Sunday roast. All the trimmings.

Toad-in-the-hole.

Pizza.

Carson groaned. He'd settle for burnt toast with no butter at the moment, if it just meant his stomach would be silent.

Treacle tart...

_Oh shut up man. Did ye really think this was going to make ye feel better?_

A low grumble that shook dust from the high ceiling made him angle his head up painfully, taking in the concerned oval of opalescent emerald-black set above a snout covered in what looked like slimy greyish-green vines. He groaned.

"Ach, please tell me that's not dessert."

It cocked its head and let go of its burden with a nauseating _splat_, the pile wobbling to standstill in a way that did nothing for Carson's appetite. He shook his head and curled up again.

"Must be bloody mad if ye think I'm eating that."

A hard nose nudged him in the chest, making his breath rush out with a _whoop_. Carson's eyes flew open at the same time his head shot up and he scrambled backwards breathlessly.

"Bloody hell, be _careful_ ye daft eejit!"

It _harrumphed_ unapologetically and eyed the heap of plants in a meaningful fashion.

"Fine," Carson mumbled with a hint of sulkiness. "But next time _you're_ eating it."

He took a tentative handful and started to chew it. The texture and taste was just as unpleasant as he thought it would be, putting him in mind of laverbread, but saltier. Oh well. At least he was getting essential vitamins and minerals, which was essential to remember when you were chewing on uncooked waterweeds with no prospect of a good drink in the near future... or any future, come to that.

He swallowed gamely and took another handful, suppressing a strong urge to simply sit like toddler and refuse to eat. The dragon lowered two lids and rumbled contentedly.

"Go bugger a bear," Carson muttered. It grunted and settled down, still keeping a careful eye on its new pet in order to make sure he ate up all his greens.

"Do I get pudding if I finish it all?"

It snorted.

"Thought not."

o.O.o

Sunset over the ocean was beautiful.

Carson had always enjoyed it.

She scolded herself for thinking so. In a city plunged into mourning, every member hurting in their own way, what right did she have to indulge? She was their leader, the one who organised their day-to-day lives, and drowning in self-pity would only hamper her work, leading to problems she knew Carson would not have approved of... if he had still been alive to disapprove of them.

Besides she needed to be strong. For her people. Sometimes she wondered what she would do if they had not been here, if she had been alone. Would she have broken by now? Or would she have wept, dried her tears, and carried on as normal, as she had when her father had died?

Impossible to know. And better not to.

Nor would it have taken away the other hurt, the brother of grief that wrung her heart dry. The monster worse than any Wraith – who only killed you, after all, and Pegasus had proved to her that death was commonplace enough. But _guilt_, now...

Guilt killed you, and left your living corpse behind to hold back the living.

Major Lorne, despite assurances from everyone involved in or aware of his deeds that this was not his fault, had taken to staying in his quarters, sneaking down for meals and avoiding people as much as possible. Whenever he met the eyes of Sheppard – or Ronon, or _anyone_ – he flinched away guiltily and retreated in shame.

She couldn't bear his guilt, couldn't _stand_ it. What right did have, to feel that shame? What _right_ did he have to feel guilty, when all of this was _her_ doing? And yet he slunk away from her attempts at conversation – at _reassurance_ – like a kicked puppy, eyes bitter and hurt with imagined responsibility, his demeanour drawing blame like flies to a fresh corpse...

And she escaped. Not even noticed.

_This is _my_ fault!_ Elizabeth wanted to scream at them, all the technicians and marines and scientists who glared at Lorne under their brows and avoided him in the hallways. My_ fault! I ordered him to go, I negotiated the discussions, I granted permission for them to have_ '_the medical expertise of your healer Carson Beckett'... this is _my_ fault! _

She stood on the balcony, screaming her guilt to the uncaring stars blurred by unshed tears.

_My fault! _

"Elizabeth?"

A cautious voice, a warm hand on her shoulders. The reading of her mind in the face she tried to conceal by looking out over the waves.

"This isn't your fault, Elizabeth. It's no-one's fault."

She leant into John's touch, her tears finally falling.

o.O.o

It was so bloody hard to count the days down here, with its constant twilight of gloomy half-light lit with glowing slime-moulds, but Carson had slept four times and felt as though he'd gotten enough rest. That made about three days, more or less, plus however long he'd spent in the cocoon, which he didn't have a clue about.

The perpetual dusk had the unfortunate side effect of making him constantly sleepy, although he suspected his gargantuan captor was often pleased about that. It was fine with him stretching his legs a little, perhaps walking around the pool or to one of the walls, but whenever he went too near the cocoon storage area or one of the misshapen black-hole exits its growl fair rattled the ceiling. Carson had taken the hint so far, out of respect for said teeth if nothing else; however, it was starting to become tiresome.

But even dragons had to eat – more than most presumably – and faking sleep apparently worked just as well on them as it had on his mum, Rodney and various peers when he had been too tired, angry or bewildered to deal with them. He had lain on his side in a foetal ball, one eye half-cracked open guardedly, until the dragon had finally been satisfied he wasn't going anywhere and slipped through the pool, presumably to get lunch or dinner or maybe even breakfast, whatever was closest.

For a few precious hours Carson was on his own, no hovering monsters checking up on him.

_Time to make the most of it. _

He opened one eye warily, slowly swivelling it around the immediate area. Rocks, water, more rocks, and oh look, some more rocks just for variety... but no dragon.

He yawned pointedly, turning over as if in sleep. Other side, check... no dragon.

He sat up. _Still_ no dragon.

_Free!_

He rose and stretched the ache out of his muscles. A little investigation was just what he needed right now; it would stave off the boredom, provide some much-needed exercise and, most importantly, might yield a way out. It looked increasingly unlikely the dragon was going to return him to dry land any time soon, so he would just have to do it himself.

Carson shook himself and started to walk towards the nearest gap-mouthed entrance. Time for a little exploring...


	12. Chapter 12

With a round of applause to everyone who pushed the purple button, I give you another whumplicious chapter. Carson never learns, does he...?

* * *

Lichens only lit so much.

And not all of them glowed. As Carson walked, feeling his way along the wall of jagged rock and slippery mould, his pupils the size of penny coins in the gloom, his feet were squelching as they landed, making sucking sounds as he pulled them up. His shoes were getting more sodden by the minute.

His clothes were already beyond help. Between a trip in the lake, a spell in a gooey cocoon and X number of days sleeping on hard stone and harder scales they were thinner than before and stunk to high heaven, or what would have been heaven if he wasn't in a cave. His tac vest had acquired several large, tooth-shaped holes that were starting to fray a little at the edges, meaning he was wearing what was in effect a very large piece of cheesecloth.

Carson shivered. The air down here had a bite to it, almost as sharp as the jaws that had made the holes.

A sickly white-green light glowed ahead._ Another patch of lichen? _He aimed towards it, swearing as he stubbed his toe on a protruding pebble in the floor.

It crunched.

_Oh. Oh, that's not good._

Carson turned, slowly, and looked down. And, after a short pause, he looked up.

The Wraith grinned back at him.

o.O.o

He remembered.

He remembered the small ones. The slight, soft-skins who dwelt by the lake edge and dived for fish at dawn with the birds. They had revered him and his kind then, offering the biggest catches – silver-scaled long-tooth dredged from the lake bed, fat squirming snake-fish that migrated up the river each spring – each night as the fires were lit. They had sung and whooped in harmony while his kin had yodelled their territorial calls to the three moons.

It had been needless. They had never been threatened then, never fallen to injury or sickness...

Until the strangers came.

He remembered the time when they had killed the soft-skins, stamped out the fires, and driven his kind to the mountain-caves in their fury and bitter zeal. Now there were no more songs.

He remembered as he swam to his home, last of his kin in the lonely world.

Lonely, but no longer alone.

Because there had been others, before the soft-skins and the strangers, and he remembered them to as he twisted his way through underground streams, water sliding easily from his scales as he entered his home at the roots of the mountain...

And saw the emptiness.

o.O.o

It took several seconds for Carson to reassure himself he was not going to die, either from a grasping hand or a heart attack.

The Wraith was grinning, as though it found his fear funny. Possibly it did; he was in no position to ask and it was in no position to answer, as one was living (for now) and the other had died what looked like centuries ago. One withered left hand was still clutching a stunner, tip trailing to the floor, and empty eye sockets were watching him as he backed away for a better look.

The top of its head had been removed.

Not just stove in or smashed, _removed_. As though someone – and a someone with teeth the size of bananas and a jaw to match – had had a pressing desire to see what Wraith brains looked like and had taken the quickest logical step towards that goal. Further detail would have to wait, since it was at this point that Carson looked down at the thing on the floor again and threw up.

It was an arm.

Carson retched again, thin bile splattering the floor, before he pulled himself up and tried to focus. Tremors were shaking him like a tired old horse, blooming between his shoulder blades to travel down his spine into an all-out fit of the shivers. He had a good idea who was responsibly for this... mess, and an equally good idea of what his chances were of escaping it. That is: slim and fat.

He turned away from the grisly scene, still shivering. The cruiser-sized tunnel stopped suddenly ahead, sliced in the middle like a worm cut in half with a knife by a huge metal door that shone a sickly green in the poor light. He walked over and stared at it a moment, before realising _why_ it looked so familiar.

Because he had seen it before, and so often it was almost part of his unconscious self.

Every door in Atlantis looked like this.

o.O.o

He gazed at it, but his reaction was not one of hope, joy, or even surprise.

It was resignation.

_The weapons bunker. _

The strange signals, the Ancient worship, the story of Maderan Mal-Ra, his defeat of the Wraith ship... not to mention the unfortunate individual slumped against the wall behind him...

It had all pointed to this. And now he had found it.

_Lucky me. _

He didn't want to do this. He knew Rodney would berate him for being a coward (and the Canadian was a fine one to talk), but he didn't care. Every time, _every single time_ he got involved with Ancient technology, something went wrong. It wasn't enough that he broke them half the time, he often ended up almost killing himself or – worse – injuring those around him. There was no way, no way at all, that he was going to open that door...

A roar sounded through the cave.

It was not a sound Carson had ever heard before, nor ever wanted to hear again. It rattled around the walls, knocking grit loose from the ceiling and shaking the corpse outside to the floor. It spoke of loss, of pain, of sorrow and the death of hope, and loneliness and above all else a terrible, soul-shattering anger.

It went on an awfully long time.

When it had stopped the silence rang, and somehow this was worse than the noise. Carson's face had turned the colour of wet ashes, his mind suddenly changed. Right now he wanted something between himself and the creator of that sound, and there was only one way to go...

He turned and pressed his hand to the control panel.

o.O.o

_Gone! _

His fury shook the cave. _Gone_, gone like the soft-skins and the others, gone and left him to die alone, coward, traitor, _betrayer_! He roared again, smashing stalagmites overhead in its rage, the broken shards splintering on the floor unheeded. _Betrayer!_

As suddenly as it had ignited, the fires of anger were quenched in the icy waters of fear. The little one had gone, wandered into the caverns... a maze of dimly-lit stone, dry and dusty as old bones, _filled_ with old bones and the things that _fed_ on old bones...

He should have warned it (_how?_). It was so small, so fragile, so very innocent of life here. He should have anticipated this; it was young and curious, and what did the young and curious like better than to scare their elders by wandering off without warning to explore? _Foolish_. He had done the same himself, and no doubt his dam had worried and fretted in equal measure.

Now it was gone, and far less capable than even a crestless wyrm-thin juvenile. Just a little soft-skinned stranger buried in a mountain of rock. Alone, without food or water or weapons, it might even be lost now, alone and frightened and smothering in the tombs of the earth. He needed to find it.

Anything might happen. Anything at all.

o.O.o

Well, he hadn't expected this.

Carson wasn't entirely sure _what_ he had been expecting, but whatever he might have expected it wouldn't have been this. If he had put some consideration into it (_fat chance_, he thought sarcastically, he hadn't exactly been considering his actions over the past few days) he might have expected... oh, a Chair perhaps. Or maybe a room of drone-shelves stacked by the dozens across the walls. Or a Jumper Bay, or even an infirmary... something useful and above all Ancient-y.

Instead there was a computer, looking absurdly big and clunky and 50's in the otherwise quite Ancient-seeming room. It was a fair certainty that all the crystals and controls would be properly in place, but apart from those it just looked... well, dull.

He had never really considered Ancient technology to be dull before. Amazing yes, frightening _yes_, but not _boring_.

There was a door at the other end of the room.

Carson hovered, hesitant and afraid. Hesitant because exploring further here might well lead to trouble – no, not _might_, _would_. Ancient tech and him just... didn't mix. He was less concerned now with breaking it as he was of it breaking _him_.

But leaving here meant going back to the tunnels, and going back to the tunnels meant facing a large, be-fanged, and extremely pissed-off scaly dragon-thing.

He studied the door, and something changed. He didn't know if it was courage – actual courage, like the stuff John and Ronon and everyone he knew had in spades, even Rodney for crying out loud (_so why was he the only coward?_). It might have been, unlikely though it was that he'd actually found some bravery at last. It might also have been a quite sensible desire not to face something that could apparently bite off a Wraith's head without any apparent trouble, although an influx of common sense at this late stage might be too much to hope for.

Or maybe he was just sick. Sick of running, sick of being scared. Sick of being the weak one, the one that was afraid, that sought a diplomatic solution because he didn't have the strength to disobey. Sick of _running_.

Maybe you could only run so far before you had to turn around and fight...

He walked over to the door and pressed his hand to the controls.

The door... didn't move.

_Damn it, _damn_ it! _

Carson pushed the pad again, swearing, then hit it, then kicked the unyielding white surface of the door with an angry blow. It did nothing but bruise his toes, which didn't really help. "It's not bloody _fair_!"

_It wasn't _fair

His doom-filled choice had turned out to be no choice at all.

Screwing up his courage, deciding to go ahead despite his fear, conquering his phobia of Ancients and their devices... it had all been had been for _nothing_.

There was nothing quite as deflating as becoming a hero only to finds that there was no need for heroes.

Carson swore again, using words Elizabeth would have been surprised he even knew the meaning of, let alone would say out loud. "Fucking Ancients! Fucking _doors_!" He then let loose a stream of incentive that lasted nearly a full minute, not sure why he was so upset but knowing it did feel _good_ to let out a bit of steam that he was most surely owed by now.

Eventually he gave the door one last filthy glance and a curse, before turning on his heel and leaving without a backwards glance.

The grin the one-armed corpse outside gave him as he passed it was almost mocking.

o.O.o

Elizabeth studied her desk as John made his weekly report in dry, dulcet tones. Her Buddha statue (_you need a bit more serenity_ Simon had said in amusement) was passed over quickly, the chubby varnished face too cheerful for her present mood. The carved wooden boxes – presented from various fellows as good-will gestures, well-meaning gifts or even precludes to flirting – held her gaze a little longer, guiding her eyes along the intricate gilding as her second-in-command and military counterpart listed missions run, missions successful, missions failed and missions called off due to any number of reasons from weather to injury and, on one memorable occasion (_she wished she could laugh, when had she last laughed?_) Rodney's appetite and pride, which had led him into eating sixteen Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars for a dare and resulted in him spending most of the remainder of the week in the infirmary.

When John reached the end of the report she was forced to study the picture she kept close always, showing her and Simon and Sedgewick – a scruffy white mutt of uncertain parentage and soppy temperament – playing in the garden just over four years ago.

_How things change. _

She cleared her throat, calling on all the unnatural calm she had learnt as a professional diplomat to come to her aid. "Colonel... I need to ask you a favour."

He looked at her questioningly. Technically speaking she didn't need to ask him anything; she was the head of Atlantis and could – and did – order him to do whatever she so pleased. He could argue and complain – and had – but ultimately the decision was hers.

His eyes softened, and she cursed inwardly. No-one had taken Carson's... accident very well, and he must think she was taking the softly-softly approach out of a misguided attempt to be nice. "Sure Elizabeth, go ahead."

_Oh, if only you could repeat that after this_. She swallowed and went for the throat – in every way. "The Erusians contacted us again through the 'gate address we provided." They had a policy of providing so-so allies – ones they needed but did not entirely trust – with pseudo-addresses, usually to safe or deserted worlds with an outpost on it or friendly natives as go-betweens. "They want to re-open links with us. Apparently they're willing to let a scientist re-enter the city."

A heart-breaking pause, then his eyes became hazel ice.

"No."

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"We're not going there. _No-one's_ going there. I will not put my team in danger."

"I've already spoken with Rodney," she said, and lowered her gaze from the hurt look in his eyes. "He's willing to go."

"Rodney wouldn't care if we were walking into a Hiveship if there was a ZPM at the other end," John said through gritted teeth. "They're totalitarian zealots and easy to upset. Rodney is _not_ the right person for the mission."_ And neither are we,_ she read in the undercurrents of his voice. _Neither is_ anybody

He had a point. Easily upset people and Rodney never mixed well but... "He specifically asked me to tell you that he was going." She saw John's scowl deepen and added "And if you refused to take him, he _would_ go alone."

_That_ made him sit up. "Tell him if he does I'll... I'll have him arrested and locked in the cells!"

"Tell him yourself," she snapped with uncharacteristic irritability. "And might I remind you that Rodney might well be able to reprogram the cell doors to lock _you_ in?"

John swore. "We are _not_ going."

"Then I suggest you tell him that. And soon," she added as he rose with a thunder-filled expression. John saluted her with barely-enough sharpness, and spun on his heel.

She sighed as he stormed out of the office.

_How things change indeed. _

o.O.o

It was conclusive. No denying it. The facts were crystal clear.

Carson Beckett was completely and utterly lost.

It was probably inevitable that it had happened so; when one is stuck in a place with no sun, moon, or stars to guide one or even a handy piece of vegetation that grows only on the north (_or was it south? _Carson wondered) side of objects and one has no map, then one is without doubt going to misplace oneself.

He wasn't even sure if he was walking in a straight line or wandering around in circles. One bit of dusty grey rock looked like all the other bits of dusty grey rock, and in the barely-lit gloom any curves in the walls would be unnoticeable. The only thing he _was_ sure of was that he was going downhill – minor changes in gravitational pull suggested he was walking on a downwards slope, which was unfortunate. Really he should be heading _up_ if he wanted to escape, but there didn't seem to be any tunnels that went that way.

It was looking increasingly likely he was going to be stuck here a very long time.

At least he wouldn't die of thirst. Every so often a stream would criss-cross the tunnel he was walking through – or follow a path directly down the passageway – and he would stop to take a drink, unheeding of the warnings he used to give offworld teams about drinking alien water. The dust had gotten into his throat and parched it to something with the consistency and moisture content of Saharan desert sand.

The water always tasted faintly of sulphur. Carson was no geologist, but he knew that wasn't a good thing.

Sulphur was a _volcanic_ rock.

_I'm in a bloody volcano. Oh sweet Jesus._

Fear did not dull his wits. It was unlikely the mountain was still active; he had seen no other traces of volcanic activity and the tunnels were missing certain _clues_... such as boiling larva trails and vents of steaming gases.

Nevertheless, it wasn't really helping his nerves. Neither were the bodies, come to that.

Carson didn't like Wraith. He had no reason to. At times he came very close to breaking his own personal moral code and actively _hating_ them; he had seen the results of their feedings more times than he cared to count, had watched Ronon try and accustom himself to living around other human beings after seven years being hunted by Wraith only to be kidnapped and put through the whole ordeal again at their hands... and on the shell of his burn-blasted planet, of all places.

All the same, the sight of Wraith corpses scattered at random intervals around the tunnels was doing his innate paranoia a world of good. Which _wasn't_ good.

It wasn't the dead bodies so much. It was the... bits. Especially the bits that bounced off his tattered and much-abused boots to roll away with a sound disconcertingly like that of a broken vase, or perhaps a football made of terracotta. He had jumped the first time this had happened, scraping his hand on the cavern wall and leaving a dribble of red-black behind him. The wound was aching and sore, but he just had to put up with it.

He was trying his best not to think about it. Just as he was trying not to think about the... other things...

This whole escapade had turned into a waking nightmare, and now it seemed the bogeymen had come out to play.

Hiding in the corners. Waiting in the dark.

He heard them behind him, he heard them in front of him, and sometimes he even wondered if he could hear them overhead. Turning fast or looking up didn't help, because the shadows and shade hid them perfectly, laying soft grey drapes over anything that might stir in the roots beneath the mountain where he had so foolishly wandered. He never even got a glimpse, but he could feel their eyes. Hear them

Chitters, soft clicks like the mandibles of spiders rubbing against each other, or faint whistles that could have been wind through the rocks, if any wind blew down here. Sometimes faint rustles echoed down from ahead, or barely audible clatters like stones knocking together.

Those times were always before he found another corpse.

Strange... how in the dry air all the flesh had disappeared...

Best not to think about it.

Carson's hand stung painfully as he gripped it tight, almost squeezing it off completely. He found himself murmuring to himself as he walked; a fragment of childish rhyme he had heard a nephew sing in the faraway hills of home.

_From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggity beasties..._

He heard them clicking to each other. It sounded like laughter.

_And thing's that go bump in the night..._

Carson shivered. It was growing colder the further he went, but he dared not stop. He knew if he turned back he'd meet something... or _some things._ It didn't really appeal to him.

He heard bones skitter in the darkness beyond.

_Things that go bump in the night... _

o.O.o

He snuffled the desiccated corpse, the sensory epithelium secreted in his nasal cavities snuffing up an acrid mixture of ancient rock-dust, dried-up flesh and the faint, fresh, sweet scent of his wayward little stranger. The harsh tang mixed with the oils and skin cells clearly spoke of fear – perhaps alarm at the corpse, perhaps something else.

_It had been through the door. _

_No-one_ had ever journeyed through there, not for an age or more. The others had built it, before he had even been spawned, and the soft-skins had cared for it until their demise in the scalding waters and fire of the last battle. He had stared at that door for days at a time, resting between hunts in the catacombs for the cold-smelling predators the sky-ship had brought, longing for the rooms behind it.

Beyond that door lay the hope of his entire race, locked away in cold metal and crystal.

He shook the memories from his scales, picking the trail back up to follow it deeper into the mountain. Whatever the little one had done it was too early to start hoping (_if he ever could, after all these years_). All his dreams might come to naught, dieing of hunger before he reached it or gnawed clean by the bone-scavengers that hunted in packs and weren't too picky if what they ate was entirely dead.

The scent-trail soured as he followed it, embittered with thirst and a sharp pang of hunger, then the coppery tang of blood smeared on a stone from a clumsy scrape in the half-light. He stiffened as he snuffed up the smell.

_Blood. _

Whatever else happened, his little one wouldn't die of hunger.

The bone-scavengers would see to that.

o.O.o

One advantage of being underground was the lack of background disturbances. No wind, no rain, no leaf-rustle, or the call of wild animals. It made those more significant noises impressively clear.

Right now the _tick-tick-tick _of pattering clawed feet behind Carson was _extremely_ significant.

_Nothing to worry about_, he told himself. _Nothing to be afraid of._ They hadn't attacked yet; just stayed at the outer edges of his vision, watching and whispering in the dark. No aggressive moves, no indication they were going to make any. That could only be a good thing, couldn't it?

An ash-coloured shadow flitted across the tunnel ahead like a ghost.

_No reason to worry. It can't be bigger than a dog..._

He heard a sniggering and chattering at the cusp of his hearing. Behind him the tick-tick-tick of tiny claws was growing louder.

_Well, maybe just a _small_ reason..._

Abruptly the tunnel widened out, then flared into a echoing cavern, smaller than the cave the dragon had taken him too but only as, say, a cruiser was small in comparison to a capitol ship. Black and white crystals – Carson guessed they were a sort of volcanic glass, but volcanology had never been his strong point – alternated in patterns across the walls like the stripes of a zebra, flaking from the walls and jutting from the floor in treacherous daggers, forming teeth-like jags at the mouths of the two other exits knocked in the walls for some unknown purpose. The lichen-glow was almost nonexistent; even the hardy plants could find no sustenance on the bleak rock, and so the cave was barely lit and dark as a tomb.

Carson grimaced. _Comforting. _

The chittering behind him was going louder. It rebounded off the walls, shattering and merging to shatter again, so it sounded as though the shadow-creatures were all around him, laughing at his stupidity.

Something dusky-grey flickered near the wall on his left.

_Ah_. His heart sank and sped up at the same time, the prickle of adrenaline making his palms sweat._ Ah. Not_ as though

They had him surrounded.

As scenting his sudden fear (_maybe they even did; he couldn't be sure and probably never would be_) he heard the chittering rise to a screech, a mosaic of bug-wide yellow eyes opening around him, a surge of grey bodies rising from crystal nests and springing to open mandibles snapping almost at his very eyes...

The rest was lost in a seething boil of stinking grey limbs and the sound of his own scream.

o.O.o

He paused in the snapping-up of one of the bone-scavengers – they tasted of felt and grease, but he hadn't eaten for a while – and looked down the tunnel with a crest fully raised in alarm, before throwing himself down the right fork.

Too late.

o.O.o

_Too late. Too late for everything. I'm dieing._

It was strange... how it was going to end. No peaceful old-age deathbed surrounded by members of his family, no sudden end in a struggle to save the lives of others... not even something normal and sane, like cancer or a heart attack or even one of the new diseases without doubt lurking at the fringes of Pegasus. No.

Instead he was being clawed and bitten, sharp little nails tearing his hair, pawing feet scrabbling his back as he curled in a ball to protect his vital organs, praying and praying and sobbing when this didn't work, tasting his own tears and the rank stench of the monkey-limbed aliens tearing at him._ No no no nonononono... _

A primeval roar made the crystals overhead fall in terrifying arrowheads, splintering on impact to throw razor-sharp shards like shrapnel, and scattering the monkey-creatures in a flurry of clicking mandibles and alarmed chitters. As a black-scaled shape burst into the cavern Carson stayed huddled on himself protectively, not daring to raise his head and expose his throat. Afterwards – when he remembered the cracking, tearing noises and the awful squeals that followed – he would be thankful he had stayed that way, not wanting another set of nightmares to replace the old.

There was comfort in familiarity, after all.

Only when the last of the screeches and screams had died away did he risk opening on frightened eye, to see an opalescent and much larger one looking back with what was almost tender concern. The dragon whuffled a weary sigh.

He smiled weakly. "Hello there."


	13. Chapter 13

I love my reviewers. Huggles to you all :)

And now Carson jumps from one situation and into another. Lather, rinse, repeat...

* * *

The journey back was silent.

The dragon hadn't reacted to Carson's feeble attempt at humour. Unsurprising; it was a _dragon_. It probably didn't see the funny side of his situation, not that Carson himself could see it. He suspected there wasn't one, and that the hysterical giggles he had erupted into afterwards had been prompted less by merriment than by a strong sense of the absurd, as well as a certain amount of relief.

It hadn't joined in. Just sighed like a steam train, grumbled like a thunderstorm, and picked him up like a cat with a kitten. He very wisely hadn't tried to protest, sensing that its patience was starting to run a little low.

Instead he had dangled mutely, jacket acquiring new holes as it scrunched up under his arms and gathered in a saliva-soaked knot at the back of his collarbone. The choking sensation was unpleasant but not terminally so; the dragon had common sense enough to bite enough of the back of his clothing to support his bottom half and take the pressure off his windpipe. It made him wonder if it had done this before and, if so, who to. After all, the only corpses he had seen had been Wraith...

Maybe he was being overly optimistic. But it would be nice to think he was right.

It slithered through the tunnels snake-like, emerging into what Carson was starting to think of as home (_not really home, but not a bad place either_), depositing him in what was probably meant to be a gentle bump but what amounted to a ankle-twisting smack on bumpy stone floor. More bruises to add to the collection, lovely.

He rubbed his leg, stood up, and looked up.

It looked back.

"'Suppose I should thank you for saving my life back there," he mumbled finally.

Silence.

"Well, thank you."

It didn't move.

Carson fidgeted. "I shouldn't have wandered off."

Triple eyelids closed then opened, scraping the surface of its eyes free of rock-dust before disappearing. He started to get annoyed.

"Are ye just going to stand there like a lemon, or have ye got something to say?"

It rumbled pointedly. He got the message.

"Aye, I know ye can't speak, but that hasn't stopped ye making your intentions clear so far, has it?"

It snorted, then lowered its head and nudged him closer to its tail, which was already curling into a sinuous comma shape. Evidently it didn't want him running off again. He obeyed without protest, not really minding a signal to sleep. The long journey, lack of food, the shock of the corpses and the Ancient... whatever it was and the pack of hungry scavengers had all taken its toll on his system. He needed rest and food, and since only rest was foreseeable in his near future...

Carson collapsed with a sigh near the middle of the tail, using it as a backrest with gratitude. The dragon for its part took this newfound obedience in its usual stoic silence, curling like a cat until its snout rested near the tip of his boots. He watched as it whuffled a sigh, making small bits of grit skip across to his trouser legs.

"Beats me why you're keepin' me here anyway," he yawned, words starting to slur as sleep took him. It blinked at him. "'S no' like I'm doin' anything useful for ye."

The dragon, as always, said nothing, but watched him yawn again and fall asleep in silence.

o.O.o

When Carson woke he was alone and cold and hungrier than ever, although a remedy for that had been piled in a squishy green mound beside him, much to his disgust. _If I ever escape it'll be less for freedom than for some decent food. _If_ I ever escape of course. _

He tucked in anyway, and his hunger made the waterweeds or whatever they were taste almost like manna. Almost. He expected the dragon to pop up again from the central pool as before, and so was very surprised when, near the end of his stomach-churning meal, its head in fact appeared from the very tunnel he had wandered down yesterday, and from the dust coating its claws it had been down there a while.

It ignored his weed-spraying greeting, stepped fluidly over the bumpy ground and picked him up again. Apart from flinching instinctively when the hand-sized fangs passed by his ear, Carson tried not to react too much. Hand-sized fangs and all that, besides which he was still fairly certain it was still a little pissed off with him about yesterday, and pissed-off dragon's did not pleasant companions make.

His surprise was doubled when he was dumped unceremoniously in front of a very familiar door.

For a moment words failed him. But not a long moment.

"What the _hell_..." He looked up at his oversized companion (trying very hard to ignore the Wraith remains being squashed by its enormous feet) and tried to convey his _exact_ feelings on its choice of berth. "What bloody stupid thing are you up to now?"

It gave the distinct impression of raising eyebrows it did not, in fact, have; possibly it was trying to remind him of a series of bloody stupid things he himself had done not so long ago. Carson was having none of it, although he did shut up a minute.

Only for a minute though. "I expect you want me tae go in there?"

It nudged him forward gently, evidently as a _yes_.

"Well I'm not going tae."

It blinked.

"I've had it up tae my ears of Ancient technology. It only causes trouble." He folded his arms as it watched in what could only be called amusement. "I'm not going in."

It picked him up – carefully, if not gently – and deposited him in front of the still-open door before settling down with a scaly _thwump_. Carson's attempts to back away from the entrance were blocked by a gentle but unyielding snout. He looked up at eyes that seemed oddly hopeful.

"Is this really that important to you?"

It lowered its head further, so it was looking up at him instead of eye-to-eye. The pleading expression couldn't be missed, least of all by someone with the compassionate reserves of Doctor Carson Beckett. He sighed.

"Alright then."

It watched him owlishly as he entered the room with a hefty share of caution and a bigger one of outright fear. Nothing had been disturbed; the computer still sat blockishly in its corner, the white door was as solidly immovable as ever. Carson walked towards the former cautiously.

As soon as he touched it lit up like a Christmas tree, a babble of something unintelligible that he could only assume was Ancient filling the air. Perhaps a warning or instructions, but it was a moot point since he didn't speak a word of Ancient anyway. So he took the other tried-and-tested method.

Carson started to push buttons.

o.O.o

For the second time in a week John was back in the Erusian temple, and he didn't like it very much.

_They kidnapped Carson. They enslaved him. They tried to kill him. It's their fault he's dead. _

_So why are we here again?_

"Weird," muttered Rodney, waving his LSD-type scanner like a shaman's wand. Although he knew the scientist was referring to the odd energy readings rather than their situation, John couldn't help but agree.

Rodney started speaking again, a continuous flood that babbled like a stream and made – at least to everyone else in the chapel room, including an Erusian scholar plus Ronon and Teyla – about as much sense.

"It's fluctuating. Not much but enough. Maybe losing power? No, scrap that, it's been around for thousands of years... mind you, that might be a good reason to start losing power..."

"McKay." Before... a lot of things John's tone might have been sharp. Now it was just weary. Rodney blinked and snapped out of whatever geekverse he had been occupying, although he didn't stop talking during the transition.

"Right, right, sorry. The power's going loopier than a monkey in a banana plantation. I'm picking up surges like, like _nothing_ I've ever seen before. It's almost as if..."

The LSD chirped a warning, then flatlined. "_Shit_!"

o.O.o

"_Shit_!"

The computer had shut down. Carson wasn't sure if he had crashed it or it had run out of power or maybe was just having a mechanical temper-tantrum. As the dragon outside rumbled an inquiry, he started to fiddle with the controls and reboot it again.

Nothing happened.

Carson pushed buttons, pulled levers, and even fiddled with some of the crystals before giving up and trying the more traditional method of rebooting, giving it a good hard kick.

It lit up.

"Bloody machines," he muttered.

o.O.o

"Ok, ok, panic over. For now anyway. It's levelling out again."

"Fascinating as this is," interrupted the Erusian (Edeus or Adeus or whatever he was called – John wasn't sure and didn't really care), in a tone that suggested it was anything but, "I for one would like to know where exactly these readings are coming from... purely out of interest of course."

John tensed, and he could see Ronon doing the same. They had been invited here nominally to foster good feelings between Atlantis and Aru-Moenia (_like that's ever going to happen_, he thought sarcastically), but the head scholar, whatever he was called, had made it quite clear that much of those good feelings depended on finding the source of the energy readings after Rodney had accidentally let slip the reason for their continued interest in the city.

None of them really cared about what the Erusians thought, but getting out of the city alive was top on all of their lists. It made sense to keep the scholar at a reasonable level of happiness, painful though that might be.

The small boy – John had assumed he was a servant until probably-Edeus had called him "The Keeper" and sent him to fetch some Ancient artefacts – hovering nearby darted forward and signed hesitantly at the scholar. Whatever it was seemed to calm the Erusian, although the impatient expression remained. "Very well. Carry on."

It was an indicator of how much things had changed that Rodney had no sarcastic response to give to this other than a rather weak "Yes _sir_. Once I managed to recalibrate this piece of incredibly advanced technology..."

The scientist immediately started to twiddle knobs again, but the scans came back inconclusive. John shot the LSD a look brimming with loathing. Apart from PuddleJumpers and drones he wasn't really at home with Ancient doodads, although it didn't reach the levels of outright paranoia that Carson had managed. "Advanced technology my _ass_, Rodney."

"That's not how it works," the scientist replied defensively "Even unbelievably sophisticated hardware can get confused. The energy levels have expanded beyond the integral range." He saw the collection of blank looks and rolled his eyes. "In very, _very_ simply layman's terms, there's so much power floating around it can't get a lock. Think of trying to see the whole of the Lantian Ocean while floating on a raft."

"So how're we going to find out where this stuff is?" Ronon demanded.

Rodney shrugged. "Old-fashioned way. We start poking around."

o.O.o

"Eejit contraption..."

The computer was running smoothly, but unfortunately Carson wasn't entirely sure _what_ it was running. The windows flickering up on the central screen suggested it was doing the Ancient equivalent of a virus scan, but he could be completely wrong about that. For all he knew it was counting down to self-destruction, or wiping its own memory. He hoped not – he'd been here an hour already and didn't really want this to have been a waste of time.

The dragon grumbled impatiently outside. "Gimme a moment ye ornery bugger..."

The screen blanked completely. Carson panicked for six straight seconds until it lit up again – a rather nice duck-egg blue – before a cool female voice said something in Ancient. A gel pad lit up, the indentations clearly showing the mark of a hand.

Gingerly, Carson rested his palm on the surface. For a moment he felt an odd sensation – as though the gel were squirming into the pores of his hand and taking notes – before it crystallised into a solid mirror.

The screen went blank again.

"Bloody _eejit_ machine!"

A grinding sound behind him made him jump. The dragon whined outside like a high-power drill as the white door that had so stumped him yesterday slid open and stopped with a _crunch_.

Carson could have cried. Finally, _finally_, he was _getting_ somewhere. He walked through the door without a second thought.

What he saw made him loose the power of speech for the second time that day.

o.O.o

Neboum hung around the offworlder quarters. He had been doing that a lot lately; Ekam had been dealing with his grief by training with Jortangi and Mistress Lana was busy (and he wondered why she was so much busier now than before he had become a murderer), so the only place he was of any use was here or in the library – and Edeus was in the library.

He didn't really want to be with Edeus at the moment.

"_I don't get why we had to come back here in the first place."_

He froze outside one of the doors. It was the big warrior; he had heard the guards gossiping that the man was Satedan, one of the last remnants of a world desecrated by demons. He felt a thrill of fear, but also of daring.

"_We already have a working ZPM. We don't need another."_

Another voice, thinner and sarcastic, bit out an acerbic reply._ "Much as I would like to forget this mudhole even exists, a ZPM is _not_ all we have to gain from this. The power fluctuations alone might well indicate a fully working military base capable of defending this whole section of the planet – perhaps even the entire southern hemisphere."_

"_So?"_ asked the other bluntly. _"We've got plenty of weapons already."_

Another voice joined in, that of the leader. Jortangi had been even warier of him than of the Satedan, something which Neboum would never understand. But then, he wasn't a soldier – or even an ex-soldier.

"_There might be an entirely new type of defence system here,"_ the man said in a low voice. Neboum strained to listen. _"Besides, a few extra drones and 'Jumpers wouldn't go amiss."_

"_We need to act swiftly." _It was the Athosian woman. Neboum liked her best. She had smiled at him when Edeus had been talking with the offworlder scholar, and asked him if he wanted to share their lunch. Protocol had forbidden him from accepting, but the thought was a good one. _"Our hosts are growing impatient."_

"_We've only been here one day,"_ the offworlder protested.

"_It is still one day too many in some opinions."_

"_Not just theirs," _the Satedan grunted.

The Athosian ignored him. _"There are tensions between Edeus and their Exarch. When I spoke with them today they argued over how long we were to stay here. I think Edeus was the one who pressed for us to be allowed to return."_

"_Well now we know who to blame..."_ The leader sounded only half-joking.

"_Well at least we have an ally,"_ the scholar said wearily._ "Of sorts."_

"_I don't trust him,"_ the Satedan said bluntly.

"_You don't trust anyone, Ronon."_

"_There's no-one here worth trusting." _Neboum heard the Satedan rise, footsteps that grew louder with each second. Fear simultaneously froze him in place and screamed at him to run. _"Especially when –"_

The door opened so suddenly Neboum jumped with surprise rather than alarm.

"– they send children to spy on us," the Satedan completed darkly.

The boy stared up at him in terror. From the corner of his eye he saw the leader looking at them both with an amused expression.

"Well, Ronon?" he said dryly. "Where are your manners? Invite him in."

o.O.o

Once again the Ancients had managed to astound him – not through any particular genius level of advancement, but through the sheer diversity of their projects. The secret defence base was not for defence at all.

It was a lab.

Of what sort Carson couldn't really say; his knowledge of the Ancient alphabet was next to nonexistent, his understanding of their language even worse. The complex struck him as vaguely medical, although he couldn't see any beds or rest areas for patients. Maybe a research lab? Atlantis had some of those – he had even worked in a few, creating the retrovirus and trying to cure Colonel Sheppard – but this looked a little different somehow.

Much of the space was taken up by what he could only assume were giant freezer-lockers, such as he himself had stored blood and tissue samples in. The walls were lined with terminals; most were dead but one screen was active, showing a complex 3D image of what Carson recognised after a moment as the lake next door. A blobby, amorphous mass near the centre was almost certainly the crashed Wraith ship, and from the looks of it those corpses he had found in the tunnels were lucky to be alive at all. Half of the stern was crushed from impact, and giant tears in the hull (_skin? _Carson wondered) would have certainly flooded most of the ship. Any survivors would have had to evacuate almost at once.

Most likely there had never been a Wraith presence on the planet at all, apart from the unfortunates down in the tunnels.

It was comforting. Not very, but still a slight consolation.

The consolation thinned a bit when he remembered Murder Suspect Number One was waiting outside at the only exit and probably getting pissier by the minute. He sighed and looked around, before freezing.

_No..._ Carson started grinning like a madman. _No bloody way! _

_Not_ the only exit.

There was another door, and it led straight up.

o.O.o

He stirred. The little one had been gone a long time, inside the place he had dreamed of often, but had never been able to enter. Hope, dreams, desire, future, it was all these things to him – and now it appeared he had the key.

The little one walked further on. He heard it pass through the last door with trepidation... but with trust.

It would come back. And if not... well, he had lived without a future for many years. There was nothing he could do now.

Just wait. And hope.

o.O.o

The kitchen was no quieter, those in it no less content than they had been at any other time... but in some indefinable way, Lana had decided, the room had grown shadowed, cold. As though the twin ghosts of guilt and pain had roosted in the dark to feed on her soul.

Lana's people had had myths of such shadows; corpse-white beings that feasted on souls pulled fresh from the bodies of humans. The _Shaudaruth_ – the Plainspeople – had many legends, but that one had always been the one that made her lie awake at night and shiver. But then that had been the point, of course; the shamans who ruled the tribes kept control through a mixture of terror and 'spells'.

She had sought to escape that, coming here. But perhaps there were some things you couldn't outrun.

People were the same everywhere.

Even offworlders.

These ones certainly seemed to be. Even now – as she sat opposite a fourteen-year-old boy who barely looked even that, a child who had had odds stacked against him from birth – watching Neboum as he snuffled and told her of his ordeal, she still clung to the faint hope that these Lantians would be like Beckett... gentle, empathetic, kind. Instead they had sent the young keeper back in a state of abject terror, bearing a message.

They had told him: Don't spy on us again. No-one is to spy on us again. And if you do, well... things might get messy.

It infuriated her. To frighten a child so, then send him to his loved ones with a blunt and dire threat... what manner of people were they? No better than those in Aru-Moenia, that was certain. It was a wonder Beckett had survived among them at all.

Unless, of course, the priests had not lied and he was truly a slave – as they said he was. But he had been so _certain_ that they lied.

Still. It did bear some thought.

She set a bowl of stew in front of the boy – food calmed him, a vestige of a barely-remembered childhood in the slum districts she supposed – and went back to work, mind humming. She had no intentions of exposing Neboum to such danger again, or anyone else for that matter. As far as she could tell, this business was closed. The offworlders would speak with Edeus, find what they came for, and leave: no more, no less.

_Keep telling thyself that, thou old biddy. Thou might even start to believe it. _

It wasn't so much fear as fear's shadow; a vague apprehension for the future. She considered it, knowing that while logic was a fine thing, sometimes listening to one's gut instinct was quicker.

Her gut was telling her: trouble was coming, and soon.

Very soon.

o.O.o

His head hurt. His feet hurt. And his stomach _really_ hurt.

Carson had been walking for what felt like hours and so far the passageway – aside from a few blast doors and the occasional way station whose purpose he had no idea about – had been unvarying, dead-straight, and spectacularly boring. Not to mention completely devoid of anything remotely edible.

He had tried to rest at some points, sitting down in the featureless white (_what was it with the Ancients and that colour; what were they trying to prove?_), knees drawn up and hands clenched warily. It never really worked; he usually ended up either drifting off to sleep or wondering whether he was ever going to make it to the other end before thirst and hunger drove him back to the caverns.

He plodded on, continuing through sheer will. _I'll make it. It has to end. Even the Ancients weren't bloody daft enough to build an endless corridor. _

_Probably. _

He saw something, a grey speck that marred the white. His heart froze.

_Oh no. _

If one of those scavenger things had come back, he was in trouble. The tunnel was far too small for the dragon to journey through, and he had no weapon, not even a rock. Kicking it wouldn't keep it away for long, and he had never really mastered the art of hand-to-hand combat outside of a few accidental post-match barroom brawls...

Carson blinked, rubbing his eyes to clear them, and then suddenly grinned.

It wasn't a scavenger, but a door.

_Finally! _Without a second thought he started to run towards it, almost sprinting in his haste. Wherever it came out, mountain, lakeside, or even another lab, it had to be better than an endless trek to nowhere, as this journey had started to feel like...

He slowed as he drew near, then stopped. The doorway was smaller than he had expected, unadorned except for a small pad on he right. He pressed his hand to it gently, wondering for one panic-stricken moment if the mechanism would still work after all this time...

The entrance slid open in complete silence, a rectangle of soft, homely yellow light. Carson sighed in relief and smiled.

_Daylight._

Without another thought or hesitation, he stepped through.

High, slit-thin windows... walls of white marble streaked with pink veins... a colourful mosaic depicting a forest on springtime...

And an altar, dead-centre in front of him.

_Crap._

He recognised the room. This was the chapel; the one Edeus had taken them too, the one with the Ancient relics... the one right at the heart of the temple.

He had walked right from the frying pan and into the fire. _Literally_.

Carson started to back into the doorway... or what had been the doorway. His spine hit a surface that was disturbingly flat and solid, and which had certainly not been there before. He spun and swore out loud.

Marble. Smooth, pink-veined, and completely blank marble.

The door was gone.

_I'm dead. Truly dead. _

Carson looked around feverishly. Maybe there was a way out of here, maybe he could sneak away and hide or try to get into the city, through down to the road that led to the 'gate...

Footsteps.

_No no no!_

Carson jumped don, intending to make a run for it but it was too little too late. The guard patrol was already outside, and so there was only one thing for it...

He ducked behind the altar just in time, curled into a frozen ball as the footsteps paused outside, low voices conversed, then the sound of booted feet slowly faded away. Carson breathed out.

_Far too close. _

He uncurled cautiously, peering over the altar. No-one around. Now or never.

He jumped up, stumbled, and ran for it.

The walls passed in a blur; he didn't know where he was going or how he would get anywhere if he _did_ have a specific destination. All he knew was that he couldn't stay where he was, and that at some point in the near future a guard patrol or late-night wanderer was going to discover him to his very terminal surprise. He needed somewhere to hide.

There was nowhere.

He slipped through a side door, skidded around a corner, and ran straight into an armoured belly.

"_Oof!_"

Both men crashed to the floor, but Carson had a speed born of terror on his side and was quick to jump back to his feet and start to run. He made it about two steps before a hard foot tangled in his own and tripped him.

The fall this time was much more painful and permanent. As the guard behind him staggered upright he felt the cold, prickling sensation of a sword being pressed to the back of his neck, then saw another pair of armoured feet come into view. But not the feet that had tripped him.

He turned his head slightly and saw the culprits, encased in embroidered slippers below a robe of bright blue. They disappeared as the owner knelt and gazed at him eye-to-eye.

Edeus smiled.

"Well healer Beckett," he said. "This _is_ a pleasant surprise."


	14. Chapter 14

One hundred reviews WOOHOO!!! In celebration and thanks I give you the climax of the story, and a nice long one to boot.

Almost there, people. Just one more to go.

* * *

The first thing Lana did when she walked into the kitchen was start brewing the morning's breakfast – a type of milky grain dish for them, and the usual bread and fruit for the priests and guards.

The second thing she did was send Ekam up with a tray to Edeus's quarters, sending one of the lower city recruits in his place to the guest section after a long think about protectiveness between brothers and the gossip of servants.

The third thing she did was treat Ekam for the enormous black eye the scientist have given him.

Grey-clothed servants and slaves watched in silence as the boy bit his lip, determinedly keeping his jaws clenched against the pain as she dabbed at the bruise with a damp cloth that smelt of roses and mint. With every dab her anger grew and so did his fear, watching her face become stonier and stonier until he blurted out "I don't know what I did wrong Mistress Lana, honest, I'm sorry..."

"Hush up, lad," she murmured, wiping at the last of the discolouration. "I know that. Quit thy fussing."

He didn't. "I dunno what I did, I just walked in and he was there with the Exarch and they were arguing. I didn't even _say_ anything..."

She started to rub in allheal cream, distracting him from the discomfort with questions. "What were they arguing about?"

"Someone, I think. Some slave. But they never said his name..."

o.O.o

The accommodations had taken a definite downturn since he had last visited.

Carson felt the hard bunk creak under him as he sat down. Pacing was the only exercise here, but it got repetitive, and his legs were starting to hurt. Not to mention his head was killing him from a mixture of the hard fall he'd taken earlier that day (was it still day? There were no windows...) and a tension headache to beat all headaches. He would have, if not killed, then at least given Edeus's kneecaps a good going over for an aspirin.

Angry voices outside his door made him stand again, migraine and achy legs be damned. He wasn't facing whatever or whoever was coming sitting on a mattress that smelt of musty feet and several things more unpleasant.

The door slammed open so hard the sound made him wince from the blow to his ears. Edeus came in, his face filled with thunder, and without any warning or even a word grabbed Carson's upper arm and pulled his almost off his feet. The doctor yelped and snatched his arm back.

"Get the bloody hell off me!"

The scientist's face darkened even further – if possible – and his fist flew out. There was a _crack_ as a harsh blow made his teeth rattled about his skull, then a haze of pain that blurred the edges of his vision into soft grey. A hard grip on his jacket collar pulled him upright as his muzzy ears heard an irate voice.

"Put him down."

The hand on his collar loosened, and Carson did indeed go down. He hit the floor hard enough to hurt and lay there gasping as the irate voice continued.

"I have allowed you free rein so far, Edeus, but no more. None of us are above the law, and if word of his survival gets out..."

"... Our fate will be pleasant compared to the future that springs from word of his _death_!" Edeus sounded angrier than Carson had ever heard him. "You cannot comprehend how important he could be in my research... research that demands _live_ subjects!" A snort. "Not charred corpses!"

"If you had guarded him better you would have had your live subject well before now, instead of a condemned slave of no use to anyone." And who was it that demanded his death all of a sudden? "As it is he will die tomorrow, a nameless prisoner in the central square. The Lantians will never find out, which is unlikely to happen if he is kept prisoner under their very noses!" A protest, a sudden interruption. "Do not make the mistake of thinking I am giving anything else than an order, scholar. He dies tomorrow, and the secret is safe. I am not negotiating but _commanding_."

Soft-soled shoes stormed away and out, and heavier feet drew near. Carson felt his chin gripped in strong fingers and his head tilted inevitably upwards to meet eyes as dark and hard as volcanic glass.

"You have been sentenced to death. You die at noon tomorrow, Beckett," they told him. "You are being transferred to the city prison now. If you try to run, or resist in any way, I will take one of your friends upstairs and cut off their fingers. If you _do_ escape, I will kill them – slowly. Do you understand?"

He stared glassily at the eyes in incomprehension. _This is a dream, just a nightmare, and soon I'm going to wake up._ But he nodded anyway; there was off chance he was wrong.

"Good." The fingers withdrew and his head slumped back down. Sounds grew watery and distant as he heard the voice say "Bring him."

He felt more hands, hands lifting him up so his feet dragged the floor, but they faded back into the dream and he slept.

o.O.o

Ekam cowered in the alcove and cried with fear.

They were gone. He had seen Edeus leave, shrinking back as the scientist stormed past his hiding place, then sharpened his ears to listen to the voice inside the cell. He had only come down here to run a message to Jortangi in the lower city; he was forbidden from leaving the temple without permission, but one of the prison guards was the ex-captain's nephew by marriage and sympathetic to his uncle's plight. But his heart had turned cold at the words he had heard, and colder still at the sound of the voice inside the cell.

"_You have been sentenced to death. You die at noon tomorrow, Beckett."_

_Beckett_

He was talking to their saviour. The prisoner was Beckett.

And he had done nothing.

Too frightened. Eaten up with fear; fear that the Exarch might hear him run and look outside, that he might be punished – _killed_ – for hearing what he shouldn't have. Too scared to die.

_Coward coward coward. _

He had had a chance – small but precious – to save the healer, and he had let it go. Because he had been afraid.

He listened as the footsteps faded and crawled out, still sobbing. He couldn't follow and yet couldn't forget; if he was caught he might still be killed but he did nothing Beckett surely would be.

"What do I do?" he moaned into the darkness, running blindly back to the sun. "What can I _do_?"

o.O.o

Hours had passed, night had fallen. And the little one still had not returned.

It was... worrying.

Even if the rooms beyond the door had defeated it, it still should have come out – for food if nothing else. The strangers were a feeble breed, even more so than the soft-skins and the Others. They needed feeding often, or they sickened and died – this much he had learned from the Speaker, at least before he had stopped speaking.

It was possible, he admitted to himself, that he might have misjudged his new... pet? Ally? Friend? What words could describe it, the only hope he had in the world... He might have overestimated its intelligence, or underestimated its compassion. Perhaps it couldn't figure out the rituals that went on beyond the door and was too ashamed to come out and face him.

Or it had left. Abandoned him like the Others.

No, never. He was not so poor a judge of being...

Perhaps. Possibly.

In any case he could do nothing. The door was too small for him, and he didn't know where the tunnel led save that it was back to the surface. Matters would have to resolve themselves without him.

It didn't stop him worrying.

o.O.o

"Mistress Lana! Mistress Lana!"

Lana sighed and looked up from the breakfast porridge, seeing Neboum dragging his strangely reluctant brother forward by one arm towards her. The sight was strange enough for her to put down the ladle and turn to face them directly.

The young keeper skidded to a halt and yanked Ekam level with one gesture, his face flushed. She frowned.

"What be fussing thee all of a sudden?" A thought struck her and she studied Ekam's face carefully. "That Edeus causing trouble?"

"It's not, not that," Neboum puffed and signed so fast she could barely follow. "Ekam, you must tell her..."

The other mumbled something. She leant in closer.

"Now lad, I can't help thee if thee won't tell me what's the matter. What be troubling you?"

He looked up from his feet, eyes bright with tears, and told her.

o.O.o

"Huh. That's weird."

_More weirdness_. Ronon felt tired. First those energy spikes yesterday and now McKay was twiddling dials on that twice-damned LSD device he had brought with him. Twiddling dials never meant anything good, especially here.

It nearly always meant that they would be staying a little longer, something he had absolutely no wish to do. Staying here was a constant reminder of failure, _his_ failure, and he had enough of those to build a mountain of. He didn't need another.

_Weak_. He drew a deep breath to ease the ache in his gut. _You failed him when he saved your life – twice. The least you can do now is bear the guilt. _

As it turned out McKay wasn't referring to the LSD. "Edeus should be here by now. It's past dawn already."

"Only by a few minutes," Teyla pointed out with a stifled yawn. Ronon reckoned it was still near midnight in Atlantis, and their collective body clocks hadn't yet adjusted to the change. All everyone wanted to do was sleep, apart from himself – he could think of more interesting things to do involving the Exarch and some sharp knives.

And McKay, apparently. "He's usually _early_. Earlier than we are. I, I think he does it on purpose; I had a supervisor like him once. Made a point of being to work before everyone else just to make them look bad..."

"Is there a point to this Rodney?" Sheppard asked through a stifled yawn.

"Well the _point_ is that this is unusual behaviour," snapped McKay "and, oh yes, isn't that _supposed_ to be something you and Cohen are interested in? Seeing as we're in a hostile city surrounded by armed hostiles and we have no weapons. Or has your genius military mind already thought of a countermeasure to those?"

Ronon let his ears fade out as they bickered, sharing a look that spoke volumes with Teyla. Earthers seemed to have an inordinate fondness for the sound of their voices, barring a select few. Like Weir, or Doctor Beckett

He clamped down on the though as he might have stamped on the head of a poisonous Satedan rock-snake. Grief was an indulgence for the living, and he did not deserve indulgence.

"Perhaps we should simply ask if Edeus is indeed seeing us this morning," Teyla soothed the two other men. She had practice, and was becoming rather good at it. At any other time he would have found this funny. "Maybe he has forgotten, or neglected to tell us."

McKay muttered something about underevolved primitives and wastes of time before agreeing with bad grace. Sheppard just nodded, and there was more than a hint of thankfulness in his gesture. McKay was Team and here that counted as much as family, but his voice did tend to grate on the nerves after a while.

As Teyla opened the door to find a servant Ronon looked through the window at the rising sun and wondered what the hell had gone wrong _this_ time.

o.O.o

The lower city mirrored the upper, but as in all mirrors things were opposing... and in some cases twisted. Instead of a gleaming marble temple as its base it had an abandoned harbour, where tough street urchins hunted rats among the rotting coils of rope and crates. The stalls at the hap-dash markets were shabbier, patched sheets stretched over fraying washing lines or tanner's drying poles, leant against the tumbledown houses in a drunken fashion, buyers stepping over the rubbish and other items less pleasant in the street without a second glance. Sharp eyes gleamed from the many alleys, watching Ekam as he nervously skittered down one of the bigger streets through the slums.

He wasn't welcome here, he knew. He might be technically allowed to journey anywhere within the city limits, but technicalities meant nothing here and his grey servant clothing marked him as a potential target. He averted his gaze from anywhere shadowed, kept his head down, and walked as fast as he dared – or faster.

He knew why Jortangi had come here, even if he didn't like it. The maze of ramshackle buildings, some of which melded into each other or formed dark tunnels beneath overhanging second levels was the perfect place to hide from the wrath of any authority – even that of the priesthood. No-one wearing an outfit that cost more than a handful of copper dared tread these streets, and the armour of even the poorest of guards cost nearly a pound of silver – rich pickings for anyone with a sharp knife, which was pretty much everyone...

The slid down Southwatch Street and entered the Crescent Moon Plaza, mentally checking he was in the right place. The description fit alright – the half-circle of almost well-built houses, the desiccated fountain in the centre that hadn't seen water in over a century – but he still consulted the small scrap of paper Mistress Lana had given him

_Crescent Moon, third floor, Number 43. _

He looked up, saw the window, and started to shout.

o.O.o

"C-captain! Captain Jortangi!"

Jortangi groaned and rolled over, shielding his eyes from the new sun. Or not so new, since from its position near cusp of the window it was midmorning already, perhaps almost noon. So hard to tell through the little windows in the slums.

"Captain!"

Who was calling? He was no captain. Not anymore. Kallik... Kallik had taken on that role with his blessing and a lungful of protests on his lips, because the wiry little man didn't really want command. All he had ever asked since coming west was good food, good friends, maybe a woman he didn't have to pay for... he was happier letting others lead and concentrating on the _important_ things.

Tough on him.

"_Captain_!" The shriek almost split his ears, and drew a chorus of angry catcalls from the other houses. What the hell was going on, a murder? Jortangi groaned again and pulled himself up reluctantly, kicking aside a half-empty jug of spirits as he went.

"Gods damn it... _what_?" he bellowed into the crisp autumn air.

"It'shealerBeckettyougottacomethey'regonnakillhim!"

He swore under his breath. What was Ekam doing here? He was going to have a long talk with the boy about proper sleep and its uses, not to mention the dangers of the lower city for unarmed children.

"Spit out boy! _Slowly_."

The teenager shook and panted, probably from running to judge from his red and sweaty face. He took several deep gulps before blurting out "Healer Beckett's alive!"

The words struck Jortangi like a lightening strike, so much so he glanced at his chest to see if his heart was still beating. "That's... _impossible_. The lake-monster..."

"I know I dunno how it happened but he's alive and I heard the Exarch say he was going to die in the central square at noon and it's almost that now you gotta _hurry_!"

The ex-guard cursed the air blue, ducking back inside to hunt for pants and boots, his rapidly dirtying shirt hanging off him in a curtain of stained brown wool. Pausing only to grab a long dirk – the only weapon he had been allowed to keep – Jortangi ran through the door and took the steps two at a time.

Ekam was waiting outside. "C-captain... sir... what do we do?"

Jortangi looked towards the city centre, and pictured what he would find there.

"First," he said quietly, "We are going to need some backup..."

o.O.o

"'Twas there that we parted in yon shady glen,

On the steep, steep sides o' BEN LOMOND..."

Carson's voice was belting out full force, the sweating stone walls doing very little to dampen it or slow it down. The guards outside were giving him dirty looks and he hadn't even reached the third verse yet.

"Where in the purple hue, the hieland hills we view,

And the moon comin' out in the GLOAMIN..."

He had no idea why he was singing it. He had never been to Loch Lomond, nor had his true love (not that he had ever had one) and if they ever had he certainly wouldn't have sung about it in a five-by-four condemned cell that smelt of old socks. The lack of food must be going to his head.

"O YOU'LL tak' the high road and I'LL tak' the low road,

And I'll be in Scotland afore ye!

For me and my true love will never meet again,

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' LOCH LOMOND!"

He'd never sung this sober, although perhaps the fear swimming in his veins counted as inebriation. Could you be drunk on fear? Or hunger? Maybe he was just trying to piss off the guards, but that would have to be subconscious because right now his rational (ha) mind had retreated to somewhere nicer.

Loch Lomond maybe.

The room had no windows, nor was it really, technically a room. A room, Carson had always thought, was four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. A door, curtain-covered hole or other entrance...

This was three walls, a ceiling that was technically the floor of someplace the next storey above, a very grimy stone floor and a mat of steel bars showing the corridor outside. Most of the light came from a battered oil lamp hanging from the ceiling near the entrance, which did not so much illuminate the darkness as outline it. He watched the shadows curl in the corners, and they watched him right back.

And winked.

He heard a faraway door creak open, the stamp of booted feet. A certain purpose and clarity burned through the fear to chill his soul.

"The... the wee birdies sing and the wild flowers spring,

And in sunshine the waters are s-sleeping..."

"Beckett," said a cold voice he didn't recognise. He shivered and croaked out –

"But, but the broken heart, it kens nae s-second spring again,

Tho' the, the waeful may c-cease frae their greeting..."

There was a grinding, scraping sound, harsh as the cry of a dragon. Metal on stone. How could it be noon already? Leather flapping, the clink of armour and swords on buckles and straps and the clink of something else...

No, don't think. Don't think.

"O y-you'll tak' the high road and I'll t-tak' the low road,

And I'll b-be in Scotland afore ye..."

A hand grabbed his wrists and pulled him up, then snapped something cool and metal around them. The same hand – square and blunt – shoved between his shoulder blades to push him forward. He heard others fall into step behind as he left the cell.

He swallowed bitter fear that threatened to choke him, and whispered.

"_For me and my true love will never meet again, _

_On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond..._"

o.O.o

Ralerin Ina-Talz was pleased with his new job. Ever since that runty keeper's brother had run off somewhere on an errand (and a long one as well, to keep him out all morning) he had been tasked with serving on the upper levels, where the guests and higher-ranked priests slept. It was a good job, better than his old one down below in the kitchens, because everything was so much cleaner and his clothes didn't have the constant smell of old grease and dirt that clung to the lower-level servants and slaves.

The new guests were interesting as well. He was rather taken with the woman, with her bronzed skin and kind smile so rare anywhere in the temple, but wary enough of the other two (he didn't count the scholar) to keep his distance unless strictly necessary. A tumble in bed was all very well, but broken bones were another matter, and the big one looked as though bone-breaking was a favourite pastime of his.

Consequently he was not near enough the guest quarters to see what happened when Neboum, Ekam and a heavily disguised Jortangi snuck inside with a whispered word. Nor did he see the reaction of those inside when the former repeated what he had heard.

He did, however, hear the roar of rage that reverberated around the building and saw a flash of leather and browned skin before the Satedan completely bowled him over in his rush to get to the city centre. He heard shouts and screams, the sounds of metal hitting metal and metal hitting meat.

Working on the upper levels was good, but it appeared to have drawbacks.

o.O.o

John risked a quick peak out of the door, cursing as he pulled back sharply, an arrow whizzing past the hallway corner like a maddened hornet. "There's got to be at least ten out there. _Damn_ it. McKay!"

"Working on it!" Rodney was currently crouched in an incredibly uncomfortable position – for once without complaint, but come _on_, he wasn't completely tactless and Carson had been, _was_ a friend and all... – trying to jimmy open a lock that Ekam had sworn blind would lead down to the lower levels and an easy escape. Unfortunately it seemed his boasts of being an accomplished lockpick, in lost years spent running from boys much bigger and stronger than he was, had been slightly exaggerated.

John swore again as Ronon risked a peak and a thrown knife at the massing guards. A scream indicated he had been working on his aim. "What the hell is half the temple security doing here anyway? Shouldn't they be patrolling or drinking coffee or whatever the hell they do here?"

"Narforen must have foreseen this," Jortangi muttered as another hornet-buzz made Rodney duck instinctively.

It was a mark of how stressed Rodney was that he didn't have any sarcasm to spare on this, unlike John's acidic "You _think_?" When things were good, Rodney was sarcastic. When things were bad, he was _very_ sarcastic.

When things were at the worst they could get, he wasn't anything at all. Nothing except a grab-bag of frantic brain activity and furiously working hands held together with spit and sheer force of will. Right now he was concentrating so hard on the lock John wondered if it might actually burst into flames.

Whispers disturbed him, made him turn his head. Behind him the two children – teenagers, which he could believe of the taller but never of the younger, twin or no twin – were talking together, or rather one was talking and the other was flicking a series of hand signs. As he watched the younger whose name he could never remember shook his head violently and closed his eyes.

The immobility that followed was almost disturbing, the stillness of Teyla in deep meditation or – and John hated his brain for its comparison – a fresh corpse. He was about to investigate, or at least shake some life into the kid, when Rodney whooped.

"Got it!"

o.O.o

Before it had been certain death. Before he had discounted the notion, a suicidal urging for revenge, and such a petty thing to one so old. Before a lot of things had happened, he would never have even considered it.

Before was a long time away.

Since the Speaker's sudden, frantic message he had felt nothing but cold crystal clarity and a chilly certainty of What Had To Be Done. No excuses, no hesitation. There were only two courses of action ahead, and only the one meant he would stay in his cave and live to see the sunset.

He had never even considered it.

o.O.o

The shaking started soon after he entered the broad main street, centred between his shoulder blade and the core of his spine to spread outwards in wave upon wave of tremors that made his skin crawl in juddering ripples. He tried to stop because really, he might be a coward and a bloody fool at that but it looked increasingly likely he was going to die and since the situation couldn't possibly get worse he might as well try to cling to some dignity while he was... still around to... do so...

Carson's thoughts trailed off as he saw the stake.

_Such a cliché_ was all he could think as he was half-carried, half-dragged towards it. _Like something out of The Crucible. A bad horror film. _

It was only the vague, floating sense that this was indeed a shoddy gore-flick, that nothing terrible was really happening and he was going to wake up tomorrow with nothing worse than a fuzzy memory of a nightmare that kept him upright. It wasn't real. He wasn't about to die. Scottish doctors didn't get burnt alive on alien worlds by religious fanatics.

He kept telling himself that as he was pushed towards the stake. His wrists were unlocked, and for a wild moment he thought he was going free – that this was a practical joke like the teachers had played on his last day at medical school – but even that small hope died in the dust as they were chained again, this time behind him.

He felt splintered wood at his back and brush at his feet and knew it was real.

_Thermal and chemical burns usually occur because heat or chemicals contact part of the body's surface, most often the skin. _Where had he read that? Which textbook? They had covered burns and their treatment early on, and he could remember thinking what a horrible way it would be to die. _Thus, the skin usually sustains most of the damage. However, severe surface burns may penetrate to deeper body structures, such as fat, muscle, or bone.__The skin acts as a barrier from the environment, and without it, patients are subject to infection and fluid loss. Burns that cover more than 15 per cent of the total body surface can lead to shock and require hospitalization for intravenous fluid resuscitation and skin care. _

Be a bit more than 15 per cent now, which was more than bloody likely. He could remember hearing once that fumes killed you before the flames could in a fire, but he wasn't sure how this applied to execution. But he could hope. Hope was a hard thing to kill, which was just as well really.

_Just drift away. Go to sleep._ He blinked as the bundles of sticks and feathery twigs reached his chained hands and tickled his palms. _A bad dream to wake up from. Who was it that said life was a dream? _

Carson laughed, but it mutated into a sob and ended up as a sort of hiccup. _It's a bloody nightmare at times then. _

He watched as a man in white robes (_didn't he know him?_) stood on a podium, heard through a watery barrier as the speech began (_shouldn't there be a girl with him?_) but it was all far away now, as if he were already starting to surface from the dream. Then the torches were lit.

He smelt smoke and burning sap as the first of the brush caught alight.

Carson closed his eyes. _Time to wake up._

o.O.o

They were out in the city and the sun was shining but it was a mocking shine, a highlight of their failure. He heard Teyla murmur a prayer and Sheppard snarl something a little less religious.

Smoke was already rising in the distance.

"No, murmured McKay in front of him, his hands clenched to white fists and shaking. "No, it's not _fair_..."

_Life isn't_ Ronon thought. He could have told them that. But he hadn't because he enjoyed their hope and their strange, soft morals that should get them killed but didn't, only this time it had. The strangest, softest one of them was now burning right in front of their eyes (_like Sateda in battle, like Melena in the hospital_), and they could do nothing. They were just... too late.

Sometimes you failed by days. Sometimes by minutes.

But it was still failure.

He'd had a second chance and he'd blown it. There would be no third one.

"We..." McKay trailed off as he looked back at the smoke again, as though the flames underneath had burnt his words away as well. He swallowed dryly and continued, looking at Sheppard determinedly. "We need to get to the gate. It's, it's a long walk, and they'll have found that back door by now. We should go."

"We're not leaving."

Ronon and Sheppard had spoken together. Teyla regarded them both with concern, the Erusians with shock and dismay. McKay just gaped.

"But look they're right behind us –" a crash and a shout reinforced his words "– and in case you haven't noticed _we have no weapons_. Not counting Caveman Conan and his armoury of sharp pointy objects."

Jortangi cleared his throat. "The armoury is by the main entrance..."

"Can you take us there?" Sheppard's face was bleak.

A nod. "Yes."

Everyone except McKay shared a glance, their thoughts in perfect accord.

"We're getting Carson," Ronon said.

"We might make it in time," Teyla said.

"We don't leave people behind," said Sheppard.

"Look, this is all very noble but..." McKay trailed off again as he saw their faces, and then sighed. "Right. Right. There is no 'but'. You know, someone's going to _listen_ to my suggestions one day and I might just die of shock."

"I'll bear in mind never to listen to you then," Sheppard muttered under his breath as they started to follow Jortangi. Thankfully McKay didn't hear him, not that Ronon cared any. He was too busy eyeing their route warily and predicting how long it was going to take the guards to break down his makeshift barricade. He'd left a couple of damn good knives wedged in it as well.

He snapped out of his tactical analysis as he saw the runty mute signing something to his brother. He'd never liked people talking when he couldn't understand – McKay didn't count,_ no-one_ understood him – and snapped out "What's he saying?"

The older twin jumped, staring at him like he'd seen a full-grown Wraith snarling at him. The other looked surprisingly calm, even happy. It only made Ronon's scowl more pronounced.

"Hey, we're leaving the caveman behind!"

"You coming Ronon?"

"Coming," he muttered, then asked again "What did he say?"

The boy shrugged, looking chary.

"He said that we don't need to hurry at all. Someone's already taking care of things for him."

o.O.o

He kept his eyes and didn't care what they thought. He could feel the heat coming up through the soles of his boots, smell smoke in the air and hear the crackle of flames, but they were far away and very... small. As though he was already halfway awake and leaving before the fire had a chance to touch him.

Then the feeling of detachment that had been saving him from breaking down and crying like a hurt child ended, killed off by the feel of flames licking around his ankles. He shut his eyes against the smarting, then the pain as the leather of his boots started to blister._ Good thing I didn't pick the cloth ones_, he thought blearily as the flames licked higher. Or not, since it was only delaying the inevitable but then part of the melting footwear touched his shin and he flinched at the sudden burn of it.

The fear helped. Drowning in it. When he was, he couldn't feel anything but the fear anymore, and that was better than dwelling on the fact that the skin on his lower legs was blistering, or that his toes were in dire threat of being burnt off completely.

He was so drowning in fear he barely even registered the first scream.

o.O.o

It had been easy to get in, not that he had expected things to be otherwise. These little soft-skinned strangers might have numbers on their side but he had size and sharp teeth and scales harder than the pitiful armour he shredded to scrap metal under his claws. For the first time in centuries he exulted in the tangy scent of spilt blood and the thrill of battle, fought with fang and talon and wicked sharp metal.

_Look at me!_ he cried silently as he crunched a skull to mush as easily as he might have a rotten gourd. _I am strong! I am the last! I am death! _

Death to them and himself. He was slaughtering them now, but they would rally. Enough arrows, enough swords and spears, and he would be bled out in the streets of their newcomer city like a crippled hoof-beast.

Better hurry then.

Smoke stung his nostrils, and the smell of burning leather. He roared – part fury, part intimidation – and surged forward, scattering soldiers like dead leaves. The hook-tip of a sword ripped off one scale, an arrow buzzed perilously close to his eye, but they were nothing but mere distractions. He was in sight of the fire now, and could see the figure bound in the middle of it.

The soft-skinned newcomers screamed and fled as he approached, some climbing over each other in their haste to escape. The only one left was a white-robed figure who stood on the podium and harangued the crowd, its shrill voice eventually irritating him so much he disposed of the source with one flick of his talons. The newcomer swayed, then fell, ripped open from gut to chin. A female screeched at the sight and wilted like a dead flower.

He ignored both, presented with a dilemma. He needed time; time to extract the little one from the fire without harm. Simply tearing him away would injure him terribly – they were so fragile, these newcomers. But already the metal-skinned soldiers were rallying; they stood back out of range of his talons and fired a steady stream of arrows at his head and less-armoured underbelly.

Then an awful pain exploded up from his abdomen, and he knew his time was up.

o.O.o

"You hear that?"

Teyla had heard nothing, but then she was aware that Ronon's ears were much sharper than hers. Both appeared to be better than the others, who hadn't even heard _Ronon's_ comment. "No?"

"It sounded like screaming." The Satedan's face looked torn between apprehension and anticipation. "Lot's of people screaming."

"And since you're our resident expert on screams... ow!" Rodney rubbed his arm and glared at Sheppard. Their leader's face did not look in the mood for chatter. He'd been stormy ever since they'd picked up their weapons and started running to the city centre.

Ronon hadn't even noticed the exchange, tensed as a hunting packrunner sighting prey. "It's coming from up ahead."

The rest exchanged grim looks and sped up.

o.O.o

He didn't know what was happening. He didn't know what had happened. He had only opened his eyes after the screams managed to permeate his trance-like state, and by then all he was about to see was a rather large, black scaly tail heading towards his face at an uncomfortable speed.

Thankfully – or not – it hadn't hit him but the post, and as the roars of what he guessed to be his old dragon buddy made the flagstones quiver the top had snapped away completely, the rest knocked over as he might have kicked over a cricket stump. This was good, in that the fires were no longer crawling up his legs and toasting his feet.

It was bad, because now he was lying in a scattering of red-hot embers, and his clothes were already starting to smoulder and get uncomfortably warm.

A shadow overcast the sun, and a gale of fishy breath made him simultaneously wrinkle his nose and smile in relief.

"H'lo l'd," he mumbled. He heard it growl a storm as it chewed at the rest of the pole like a stick of Blackpool rock. The splinters stabbed his arms but he didn't make a sound. He could deal with a little blood if it meant he was no longer toasting.

A screech that hurt the ears made his head feel as though it were splitting open. The shadow withdrew, the sun shone again. He heard another screech, and tugged desperately at the remains of the pole.

"_Come on..._"

A snap and a jolt that numbed him to the elbow. He felt his hands pulled free, although unfortunately still encased in steel linked to a length of chain only a little longer than his hand. Doing a series of complicated gymnastics so they were in front of him rather than behind he staggered up and looked around.

It was his dragon buddy alright, but not for much longer. Its crest was fully raised, streaked orange and red, its underbelly was lathed in crimson stripes, one claw was missing and several scales hung like a lepers rags. Even as he watched he could see it reel, blood falling from its underbelly like rain. One brave soldier dived under a scything claw to ram his lance up to his handgrip in its chest, resulting in a horrible shriek. His head chomped to red mush for his pains, but the damage was done.

The dragon shrieked again, red frothing at its mouth as it turned. For a moment it looked at him, and he thought it might try to reach him.

Another soldier stepped by his headless comrade, expression grim, and raised a crossbow.

o.O.o

Everything hurt. He had never known pain like this in all his years of existence, so terrible he was glad he was about to die. But he didn't want to die alone. A bolt, sharp and horrible, pierced his eye like a sunbeam, and made his vision turn red. To die alone...

He wasn't aware of falling, or hitting the ground. He heard the little one cry out, heard running footsteps and the clink of metal on metal, felt something soft touch his wilted crest and was glad.

He would not die alone.

The last breathed once more, his life leaving in the exhale of a sigh.

o.O.o

Carson stroked the glassy scales in front of him, his vision blurring so they shimmered like black water. He wasn't sure if he was crying for the dead monster, or for the people who had died, or even for himself. He wiped some of the blood from the creature's massive head and swallowed his grief as he had done so many times before.

_The creature. An animal?_ No animal could have done what the water creature had, something out of myth, like children's tales of dragons. _So it was never an animal_, he decided as the tears started to fall. _It was... a friend. _

A shout made him look up. One of the soldiers – he same one who had shot the fatal arrow – was running from a crimson-covered body in white robes, mouthing meaningless words. He raised his crossbow again, his expression grim.

"You summoned this monster to save you. To murder us all." His mouth went thin. "Witch!"

Carson saw the arrow point, dwindling almost to nothing, and was too tired to feel fear. He watched as the finger tightened on the trigger, the bolt centred on his forehead.

As the man's head exploded in crimson light.

As seven figures emerged through the smoke.

The foremost halted a bare metre from him, his voice hushed.

"_K'kruck_!"

"Oh my God it can't be..."

"Carson?"

Carson looked at him a long moment, rose, then raised an admonitory finger.

"I don't... don't care what you say lad..."

"Carson you need to sit down, you're hurt..."

"It's rugby, not football," and the smoke carried him away to darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain...

The last chapter in this particular story and dedicated to everyone who's been on the journey with me. Mice2, you get your Carson and Rodney hug, Demonik, if you're reading then Carson gets a whiskey-like substance at last. As for the rest of you there's fluff, team-bonding and even a smidge of whump for the hardcores :)

The journey's been good. Hope you enjoyed it.

* * *

For the second time in a month, Elizabeth ran to the gateroom at a dead sprint. It lacked decorum, and most likely made her look a complete idiot, but John's team was already over an hour overdue and only a distinct lack of available teams had stopped her from panicking and sending half the military after him.

Fortunately for everyone he had radioed in scant minutes ago. She could still hear the message over the com:

"_Atlantis, this is Sheppard. We need a medical team in the gateroom as soon as we enter... and we're bringing an extra person."_

Right now she couldn't give a damn about the extra, being more concerned that John and his team weren't badly wounded. She even found herself, selfishly, hoping that this nameless addition was the injured party. Three years ago the thought would have horrified her, but three years ago she had been a different person. A naive person.

Three years on from the innocent she had been she knew; she would wish anything, _do_ anything to keep more of her people from harm.

And who was this person to her? Probably just a native tagging along for the ride...

The blue of the Stargate and the black figures struggling through washed the selfish little thoughts away, cleaned her mind. She breathed again as John appeared; unhurt.

Rodney; unhurt.

Teyla and Ronon; unhurt. But bent double; she could see now they were supporting someone else that looked half-dead, traces of what appeared to be blood and ashes smearing the clean floor behind him, and his clothes were in filthy rags. She hurried forward with the medical team to greet John.

"What happened–?"

One of the medics shrieked, a shrill discord that made every soldier present raise their weapon. Elizabeth jumped and spun.

"What–?" she saw the nurse lean back, her face ashen; the others around her looked ready to faint or throw up, possibly both. Her heart sank; were this stranger's injuries so bad? Guilt struck her anew, an old friend. She had been so selfish in wishing this person grievance rather than her own.

Hoping to make amends she leant down, steeling for the horrific injuries she would surely see. On closer inspection the stranger was a man; covered in soot, mud and blood, his hair plastered to his head in wet strands, face white as chalk. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder, reassurances at the ready even as she frowned; noticing he was wearing what appeared to be the tattered remains of exploration BDUs...

He looked up, confused blue eyes glittering in stark contrast to the white beneath. "'L'z'b'th?"

Her gasp was drowned in a sob as she threw her arms around him.

o.O.o

Dr Cole had undergone shock, amazement, and alarm in that approximate order in the last hour or so. Now she was well on her way through to relief, via a small detour into the realms of guilt. There was very little they could do for her CMO, as she was trying to explain to a group of very intimidating people – and for once this description wasn't merely exclusive to Ronon.

"Well obviously he's in severe shock," she said, trying to ignore both the expectant eyes of those in front of her and the bustle of nurses behind her. Carson was well-liked among the staff, being as he was, as Jenny had put it succinctly, "a sweetie," and well known for pushing himself above and beyond the call of duty, sparing his own staff at the expense of himself.

"We all are," Dr Weir said with an edge to her voice.

"Well, yes. Um. There were third-degree burns on his lower legs and thighs, more severe ones on his feet – we're treating those with antiseptic gel and plasters. There's a few lacerations around his wrist – that was probably from the, um, manacles, Colonel Sheppard? We've bandaged those and he'll be okay if he doesn't overstretch himself. He's also suffering from fairly advanced malnutrition, but he should be fine after a few days of regular meals."

"That's so typical," Rodney muttered. "He scares m– us all senseless pulling his "I'm dead" act and manages to shrug it off with a few minor injuries and a free ticket for extra meals?"

Cole saw Ronon glowering at the physicist that made her glad the two were separated by at least three other people and hastily continued. "I'm keeping him in for bed rest during the next few days. Apart from anything else we need to build up his strength and let him rest and, um..." she looked pleadingly at them all. Teyla took pity on her.

"Carson would be unlikely to remain resting if he thought there was a need for him here. He would exhaust himself and possibly even cause himself further injury if left unattended."

Colonel Sheppard grunted, and carefully avoided Cole's accusing stare. His own dislike for bed rest was well known. "Good point."

"He might start interfering, even in the infirmary," Dr Weir pointed out. "_Especially_ if he's kept in the infirmary."

"There's nowhere else we can treat the burns properly," Cole said apologetically.

"It'll still mean babysitting around the clock to make sure he doesn't try to escape," Sheppard countered.

"I'll stay." They all looked at Ronon, who spoke for the first time. "I'll make sure he stays put."

"He can be very persistent when he wants to be," Cole warned. "You might not be able to keep him here..."

Ronon raised an eyebrow, then linked his fingers and pushed them out in a stretching motion. The popping sound that occurred was discomfortingly like that of breaking bones.

"Wanna bet?" he smirked.

o.O.o

Ronon stayed, choosing an opportune moment to go mysteriously deaf at Sheppard's insistence that he have something to eat. The others argued fruitlessly but were forced to give up, and were halfway back to their separate rooms for a well-earned rest when Rodney suddenly stopped, spun, and started to run.

"I just forgot... datapad... might as well catch up on work... see you later!"

"McKay! What–?" Sheppard managed to shout at his rapidly retreating back before the scientist disappeared entirely. He would have run after Rodney, but he was tired to the marrow and frankly couldn't work up enough energy to do anything else than part ways with Teyla, stagger to his room and collapse on his bed in a boneless heap.

Meanwhile Rodney calmed the further he got from his team leader and best friend, slowing until he finally entered the infirmary at a walking pace. Carson's bed was easy to pick out; not many other patients had oversized and narrow-eyed Satedans hovering beside them like the ultimate guardian angel. Ronon didn't look around when Rodney approached him, and only glanced once when the scientist sat down on one of the spare chairs.

Carson looked a strange mixture of terribly old and terribly young. His haggard appearance conveyed past pains and his beard had grown in an uncontrollable scruff, but he was curled on his side like a child and his face was oddly innocent above the clean white blankets. One arm was stretched out over the side of the bed as if grasping for peace, the fingers slightly bent.

Very carefully, very gently, Rodney picked up the hand and replaced it beside the duvet.

o.O.o

He tugged at gummed eyelids slowly, the wash of soothing air playing over the skin of his face and cooling the fire that still burnt under his skin. He opened cracked lips carefully and croaked the first thing he could think over.

"W'ter."

Instantly something cold and moist was slipped into his mouth, the sensation so beautiful he actually whimpered a little. It was odd, all strange angles and lines. His internal databank threw up a name for the strange object: ice chip. He relaxed and let it melt slowly, the trickles easing his throat and parched tongue.

"You there, doc?"

The databank threw up another name. _Ronon_.

Carson pulled open his eyes, one heavy hand reaching up to wipe away the sleep-gunk. A face framed in dreadlocks looked down on him with one of the Satedan's rare smiles; the small and surprisingly gentle one that few people ever saw.

"Good to have to back."

A snore made him start and flop his head sideways. Rodney was sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs beside the bed, neck cricked at an angle that made the doctor wince in sympathy for when his friend woke up, a trail of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. He looked back at Ronon, who shrugged.

"He fell asleep."

"So I... see." He looked around, saw clean white and soothing blue, heard the soft hum of the staff (_his_ staff) and the low voices of their patients. It was surprisingly quiet, and he guessed it must be either late night or very early morning. The latter, to judge by people's weary just-got-out-of-bed looks.

"At'l'ntis?" he murmured.

"Yeah. We got back yesterday." The ex-runner's face went sombre, and a large hand gripped Carson's shoulder. "You're back home. You're safe now."

Carson felt his throat swell, gratitude and relief making a lump that boiled upwards to his face and forced him to turn away so Ronon wouldn't see the tears forming in his eyes.

_I'm home. _

And he was never leaving again.

o.O.o

He slept peacefully; soothed by the presence of his friends who would never let anyone hurt him, his dreams untroubled. When he woke again he felt refreshed and almost smiled when he heard an irritable voice whispering heatedly near his head.

"... Spent all day staring at his comatose body and when he finally wakes up you didn't even think to _tell_ me..."

"Rod...ney," he whispered. The voice was cut off, and he managed the rest of the sentence slowly. "You daft bugger... I'm awake _now_."

"You woke him up," rumbled another voice irately.

"Did not," snapped Rodney, before quietening down to almost a whisper. "How're you feeling? Well obviously you feel like crap because hey, almost burnt alive here, but other than all the horrible injuries and that beard that frankly makes you look like a fungus is eating your face and a smell that could probably knock Conan here dead if he got too close, how are you? In, in general?"

There was a soft thwapping sound and a yelp. "What? What did I say this time, you bumbling excuse for a Neanderthal?"

"McKay," rumbled Ronon again. "Shut up."

Rodney took the hint to Carson's great relief, subsiding into a faint grumble of unspecific insults towards Ronon's character, bodily odour, and parentage. The Satedan ignored him.

"How you feeling, doc?"

"I just _said_ that... ow!"

"Bludy awful," Carson whispered before opening his mouth pleading again. "I-ice?"

Ronon proffered a disposable plastic cup of said items, carefully extracting one between thumb and forefinger to place it on Carson's tongue. The doctor closed his eyes to savour the cooling sensation, as well as block out the increasingly painful light.

"Carson?" Rodney sounded more subdued now, his voice quieter. "Do you want some food or anything? Water? Painkillers? Doctor Cole's just in the main office..." Carson said nothing, drifting back into a dreamy haze, and the scientist began to panic. "Carson?"

"Rodney..." His head dipped to one side and he fought to focus on the two blurry figures by his bed, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks in an effort to keep them up. "I just... need to sleep... I'm that tired, lad..."

"Oh. Oh, right. We'll, um..."

"Wait," Ronon interjected bluntly. "McKay?"

"Huh?"

"Shut up."

"Ah, right. Yes. Of course. Sorry."

He sunk back into velvet darkness, and this time there were no more dreams.

o.O.o

Carson woke and slept again twice more before he was ready to eat anything; almost-chicken soup with sort-of vegetables floating in it (the _Daedalus_ was on a return trip from Earth and supplies were running a little low). He managed to keep it down but skipped dessert (blue jello: Ronon swallowed it in one gulp, earning himself a barrage of complaints in the process), preferring to sleep instead. Rodney worried, saying he was practically hibernating and bullying nurses into examining him, but nothing was wrong. He was just tired.

Tired of it all, he thought sometimes.

John and Teyla visited soon after the meagre lunch. It was short, awkward and intense; mostly consisting of apologies and thanks from both parties, with a little explanation to where he had been. Weir visited later, and _that_ visit had no thanks or explanation at all in it; just one long 'sorry'.

He couldn't really blame them for feeling guilty, but he wished they could forgive themselves.

He wished _he_ could forgive them.

Because mostly he could. Mostly, when they watched him with eyes brimming with hope and fear bound together in tangled webs, when they offered little pieces of their soul with words and sorrowful faces in front of them he could forgive. Maybe even forget.

But when they left...

When they left everything came back. Being forced to go to Erusia. All the troubles that had stemmed from that. The beating, the near-drowning in the lake, the cocooning, the death of the dragon. The way they had left him, assuming him dead. How they had arrived too late to do anything but watch as the dragon's corpse cooled. Everything.

He couldn't forget. And he couldn't forgive.

In time, Carson assured himself, maybe he would. They were his friends. None of this had been their fault. In time, he would forgive them.

But sometimes that time seemed so very far away.

o.O.o

After the third day Carson attempted to leave. _Attempted_ being the opportune word; he hadn't gone two steps out of bed before Ronon and Rodney (_Tweedledee and Tweedledum_, he thought irritably) appeared as thought summoned by a magic lamp and pinned him back against the bed without touching him.

"Doctor Cole said you needed to stay in here at least five days," Ronon said flatly.

"You don't get off that easily," Rodney added.

Carson had opened his mouth to protest, seen Ronon's look and promptly shut it again. Then sighed in defeat.

"I'll get lunch," Rodney declared, magnanimous in victory.

"Remember the dessert, it's chocolate pudding today," Ronon ordered. He had taken a liking to chocolate.

Carson had managed about half of his (macaroni and cheese) food, none of the pudding, and managed to stay awake long enough to argue with Rodney about the joys of trout fishing, something the scientist declared was possibly "_The_ most boring sport invented by humankind."

Ronon responded by offering to teach him some Satedan sports. Rodney, upon seeing the glint in his eye, declined, but suggested he asked Sheppard. Carson sighed internally and made a mental note to stock up on bruise-balm and painkillers as soon as he was fit to work. Eventually he pleaded tiredness and Dr Cole shooed them away, leaving him to stare blankly at the ceiling until he fell into a fitful doze.

He survived day four by seeding a three-way debate on the merits of Canadian hockey before letting Ronon take over the conversation. The Satedan couldn't imagine any sane person strapping sharp objects to their feet in order to glide over ice and hit small round objects into nets. Carson lay back, listened, wondering if the fire had actually killed him and he was being eternally punished in hell.

It wasn't as warm as he thought it would be.

The only break came when Rodney told him what his team of scientists had found on Erusia after following Carson's directions to the underground rooms. Carson, who hadn't even known anyone was going back to that hellhole, sat up with interest and asked if they were alright.

"Oh they're fine, fine," Rodney said dismissively. "The city's in complete chaos at the moment though. They had to sort-of sneak in at first, but no-one stopped them when they were in the temple and –" his eyes gleamed with the old familiar light of interest "–they found out a lot."

Ronon rather gruffly told him to spit it out, and the scientist continued hastily. "Well anyway, that lab you found? You were right, it _was_ a genetics lab. Apparently the Ancients were studying the basic properties of DNA in there – kind of like the voodoo you muck around with here – but not with sentients, at least they didn't get that far because Zelenka found some notes and he thinks they might have wanted to carry on and study their own DNA, maybe even human... Carson this is incredible, you might have actually discovered the cause of all the different races in the Milky Way, we always thought it was just evolution but..." Rodney saw Ronon's impatient scowl and sighed.

"Anyway _again_, it's pretty incredible, but there's something even better. There were _eggs_."

The doctor shot up. "Eggs...?"

"Yeah, Zelenka said it was weird. Just this whole fridge full of eggs. Some of them even had embryos." Rodney looked a little put out there had been nothing of a more technical nature, but he carried on regardless. "The... things inside them look a lot like that overgrown lizard that kidnapped you. From what I read in those notes they were some sort of experiment species, the Ancients were trying to perfect their techniques. They had to as well, because the... lizards... were infertile. They had to keep growing new ones to replace any that died. There was some sort of other species they managed to produce as well, but we couldn't make those out. They used human DNA though, so they were probably like... prototypes."

Right now the doctor couldn't give a damn. "Are the eggs still alive?"

"A couple but..."

"Could they be hatched?"

"I suppose so but..."

"Do it."

"Huh?"

"Hatch them. And send some of the samples over." Carson lent back and sighed, exhausted. No wonder the poor dragon had wanted him to go into the lab, full of the frozen young of his kind. "And all the records you can find on the species. I want to see if I can't fix that infertility problem."

Rodney's mouth open and closed like a fish for a few moments, possibly in surprise at Carson's new-found bossiness. Before he could come up with a suitably sarcastic reply, Ronon stepped in.

"I'll make sure he does it, doc."

"Thanks... thanks lad." He was so tired now, one more mystery solved, and he could really use some sleep. "I... appreciate it."

He stayed awake just long enough to hear Rodney wonder about his sudden interest in bunny-hugging before sleep took him.

When he woke on day five he bid the infirmary goodbye with gladness and paid a visit to Dr Weir to see about procuring some peace of mind.

o.O.o

"No," Elizabeth said flatly.

He had found her studying a picture, one of a man and a white dog along with herself, stroking the frame as though caressing a sleeping child. It was still quite early in the morning; Carson had wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, and outside, the sun was dappling the seas with golden petals.

"You can't go back. I won't let... you're still recovering. You should be resting in your quarters."

"I've rested enough."

"You should relax. You've been through so much."

"I need to do this," he said quietly.

"It's suicide."

He actually laughed. "Where have I heard _that_ before?"

"Carson..." Elizabeth's reasonable façade cracked. "You... you were put through so much there. You've only just come _back_. Please, let it lie."

He couldn't answer. Couldn't tell her that it was precisely because he _had_ been put through so much that he needed to return. That he wasn't really back, because every time he slept he returned to the stake, feeling the flames eat at his boots. That he couldn't let it lie, because it wouldn't _let_ him.

It wouldn't let him forget what they had done.

_You sent me there. I didn't want to go but you sent me. _

And what they _hadn't_ done.

_You left me. You gave up and left me behind. _

Carson grasped at the hope that if he went back to Erusia, purged his demons he could come back and everything would be... _normal_ again. That he could look at his friends without anger, forgive them and forget. Return the poison to its home and be free.

So deep was this conviction that he managed to argue, plead and finally beg until Elizabeth finally caved in and sent a com call for two teams (she was taking no chances) to come up to the gate room _at once_.

Both teams were strangers to Carson; the first was comprised mainly of newbies from the same drop-off as Desjardin and Owens, the second were a little more seasoned but lucky enough in their missions to not have visited him on a professional basis much. He vaguely recalled their leader's names; Major Hockley and Lieutenant Farrows

Five minutes after that Chuck was dialling the gate for Erusia.

o.O.o

Carson hadn't really been expecting anything. Nevertheless, what he found in Aru-Moenia wasn't at all what he expected.

The city hadn't changed at all.

Carts clogged the roads; vendors were bawling out unmissable deals, buyers hurried, merchants strode along with self-important expressions, trains of servants trailing along behind them. There were guards at the gateway and children playing in the streets.

All completely normal.

There were... little things though. The guards had taken one look at them and backed away as though dealing with plague-ridden lepers, and wherever they went a bubble appeared around them like an invisible force field. He was painfully aware that those same children playing in the streets disappeared from sight as soon as they came near.

"Healer Beckett!"

All save two.

Ekam and Neboum elbowed their way through the crowds, ducking under one woman's over laden basket and sidestepping a handcart of piled fruit before throwing themselves on the doctor as one. Carson staggered a back a little, before returning their hugs.

"Hey laddies," he said, surprised to find his throat was closing. "How're things?"

o.O.o

The sight of the squaddies caused quite a stir as they padded along warily, and for some curious reason the streets appeared to become somewhat deserted the further they got from the markets. The journey back to where they were staying – Ekam explained they had bunked with Jortangi in the lower city "Just for a while" to wait for things to quieten down – was filled out with a question and answer session of which only half was comprehensible to the eight marines following them.

Most of it was centred around the temple. There was a lot to catch up on.

"No-one's really sure who's in charge now," Ekam confided as they weaved between a pile of what smelt like rotting rags and a sleeping drunk. "The Exarch was killed by the dragon and Mahalia's... well, she's not fit to take over. I think seeing her father get gutted did something to her."

Neboum signed something. Carson looked at Ekam questioningly, and the other shrugged.

"He say's she doesn't speak sense anymore. The healers say her mind snapped."

It said a lot for what had happened here that Carson couldn't really feel sorry for the girl. "I would've thought Edeus would take over. He'd find a way," he added under his breath.

The boys looked at each other.

"He disappeared," Ekam said quietly. "Nobody knows where. Nobody looked very hard either."

"Wonder why."

"There was all this babble about him being a heretic and stuff. Everyone says he ran away. Probably went too near the lake," Ekam finished cheerfully.

This time it was Neboum and Carson who exchanged looks. He wasn't sure what the wee lad had had to do with the dragon-thing, and was wise enough not to ask. The dragon had saved him – twice – and if Neboum had nothing to do with it, fine. If he did...

No-one could know. No-one could _ever_ know.

It was better for everyone if things just went back to normal, or at least the sort of normal that didn't involve whippings and burning and religious fanatics.

"Beckett."

At first he thought one of the marines had spoken, but when he looked up he saw a mop of hair that blazed gold in the sun, atop clothes woven simply in russet and brown. Jortangi smiled – actually _smiled_ – as the twins whooped simultaneously and ran towards him, sweeping them to him, one in each arm.

_He's_ _home_, Carson thought suddenly, and wondered why he did. But the idea suited, and he felt a pang of jealousy. For the first time since they had met the soldier looked... happy.

_And that's what home is. Not where you live, or where you were born, but wherever you feel you fit in. And he's found where he fits. _

Jortangi released the two boys and with one quick glance took in everything; the wary marines, Carson's new and clean clothing, the bandages still visible down most of his right leg and the unusual bulkiness of his right foot. "You are healing."

"Aye." Carson wasn't sure what to say next. He wasn't sure if there _was_ anything to say.

The ex-guard took pity on him. "Come inside."

The kitchen of the poky, two-room flat was a little cramped when stuffed with two teenage boys a doctor and a soldier: the marines were eventually persuaded to wait outside after the attempts of both squads to enter almost split the room wide open. Ekam and Neboum ended up sitting on the table as Carson and Jortangi took the only chairs. Another was wedged in the corner, one leg broken and another half-carved beside it. Jortangi caught Carson looking and shrugged ruefully.

"I was teaching Ekam a little swordplay. I misjudged his enthusiasm," the older man winked at Ekam, who had turned red, "and his strength."

Ekam went even redder. Carson hid a smile and a spark of melancholy. The pride and sorrow in Jortangi's eyes clearly spoke of both his pleasure in passing his skills on to an able pupil, and his regret that killing was the only skill he had to teach. He wondered what Neboum would do when his brother was grown – the lad couldn't very well go back to the temple by the looks of things.

Jortangi proved him right, after he had insisted on pouring them both something that looked like whiskey, smelt like whiskey, and tasted of lighter fuel mixed with petrol. "I took them in. The temple is no longer a suitable place for children. Perhaps one day they might return, perhaps not."

Carson had to speak. "We could help–"

"We do not require help," Jortangi said sharply, as Neboum shifted with discomfort. "We are capable of looking after ourselves."

Carson nodded uneasily, but he knew what the man meant. None of them was a slave or servant anymore, and with freedom came responsibility. Begging for charity, or even accepting it, would lessen what freedom they had.

He didn't agree with this view, but he could understand it.

"What will you do?"

Jortangi shrugged. "If the temple holds...? Neboum may return. Priests will always need scholars. And I have taken his brother as my apprentice; there will always be a need for warriors. Perhaps we will go to the borders and join the patrols there."

"And if the temple _doesn't_ hold?" Carson asked quietly.

"There are other temples, in other cities. Lana would join us. We will survive." The other smiled slightly. "You have not spoken of yourself yet. Are you healed?"

"I'm fine."

There was a pause. "And now the truth, please," Jortangi said quietly.

"The burns are on the mend," Carson said defensively.

Jortangi looked at him a long minute, before speaking again, his voice soft. "They took the carcass of the monster down to the lakeside and burnt it. Later, we went to the pyre to gather what we could and give the remains a decent burial. Does that comfort you?"

Carson tried to look nonchalant, making an attempt at a shrug. "Why should it? It was just a dragon... a monster."

"It was also a brave warrior and a loyal friend. You would like the spot we chose for the grave," Jortangi added. "It was by the lake, where we first saw it, at the foot of the bank. Soon the rest of the escarpment will collapse, and no-one will ever find the remains. It will rest peacefully."

Carson carefully studied his hands to stop them seeing that his eyes were shamefully watery. Jortangi smiled when he finally looked up again.

"Now, I ask again: are you healed?"

"No," said Carson after taking a sip of the foul brew. "But I might be getting better."

o.O.o

The sunsets on Lantea were always beautiful, but this one was special. A cloud bank had formed on the horizon, striping the sky with pink and purple, interspersed with strips of bright gold. The air as well had turned a faint golden colour, as though the viewer was looking through a sheet of frozen honey.

The glories of the evening were lost on the man approaching Carson, who didn't really want to be there. He was _no good_ at this sort of thing. Teyla would have been a better choice, or Sheppard. They were good with people. Hell, even Ronon would be better, because the Neanderthal just sat there and was silent and didn't manage to say something so completely ludicrous that their listener didn't speak to them for a week and really it was stupid that they had all told him to come down here because being a genius didn't mean he was necessarily a nice person...

All of these were the thoughts of the man approaching Carson in the copper-stained haze. He couldn't actually hear them, but he could hear the man's footsteps and so knew who he was – that particular person always trod heavily and managed to breathe even more loudly when he was making an effort to do so quietly.

And because he knew who it was, he knew what that person was thinking. Just because it was that person.

"Um, hey."

He didn't turn. "Hello Rodney."

An awkward pause. "Um, mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead." So what if he was being a bit brusque? They deserved it. They all deserved it. He had been thinking about things since his return from Erusia, and now he realised that most of his troubles had started because at some point he had been stupid enough to listen to his friends.

_Come on Carson, the Hoffans are very friendly. _

_We need a weapon to fight the Wraith, Carson. _

_There's nothing we can do for them. _

_It's only for a while._

He heard Rodney sit down with a _thwumpf_, a slight shifting sound as the scientist made himself comfortable, then nothing. A diplomatic silence fell over the two men.

Naturally, Rodney was the one to break it. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my favourite spot," Carson said quietly. "You can watch the sun set from here. It's very peaceful."

"Um, yes. It is."

The silence stretched. For some reason Rodney seemed to find this unbearable.

"Um, about Erusia."

Carson tensed.

"We, we did look. After they told us. We all went down to the lake and saw the tracks and that soldier, what's-his-name, told us what had happened and... We never thought you could actually _live_ through that..."

"Neither did I," Carson said with a brittle tone.

"I, I know." Rodney paused. "We all know. They... we, we just wanted to say–"

Anger flared in him, hot and sick. "Don't."

"What?"

"Don't say you're sorry. You're not."

"What? Of course we are? Do you have any idea what it's –"

"What it's _been_ like? For _you_?" Carson's brittleness had snapped, leaving only a swelling of rage like the boil of an angry sea. "No, I don't. I can't imagine what it's like for you. But I tell you one thing Rodney – it must be bloody _brilliant_ to be you. To be any of you."

"But we, we left you... everyone feels horrible about–"

"_God damn it I don't _care_ about that!_" Carson roared suddenly, making Rodney jump. "Erusia was just another bloody mess you made that I had to pull myself out of. I should probably be thankful there weren't any _massacres_!"

"Oh..." Rodney's face cleared. "Is this about those Wraith? Carson, you know that was ness–"

"Necessary? Oh aye, I know that pretty well," Carson interrupted bitterly. "I got told it often enough."

"I'm sorry–"

"No you're not." Carson turned, still seated; facing the man he had called his friend for over two years. "You're not sorry. Nor is the Colonel, or Doctor Weir, or Ronon or even Teyla. You don't regret what happened, you didn't even care when it _was_ happening. Over a hundred people were wiped out, and you... smiled afterwards. Sighed and smiled. All of you. Because the problem had been _taken care of_. Meaning yet more people had died because of what I had done... what I had tried to do. I _remember_. You didn't care then, and you don't care now."

Rodney turned away at this, staring out over the water. It had to be the sunset on the water that made his eyes looked moist.

"Carson, I..." He trailed off. "You're right. I didn't care then. It was... it was too far away for me to care. I just stayed in the ship and waited until you all came back and... When John told us what had to happen it just... distant. Blow up a few acres of land and we're all safe. Unreal, like... like a game. I don't think I could have done it otherwise. It –" Rodney's voice went thick "– it was only afterwards... when I started dreaming afterwards... I could see them, running around, everything on fire, they were _burning_, not even knowing why... like ants under a magnifying glass. And, and, I was the one who fired, it _had_ to be me because if, if my friends could order that then what am I doing here, Carson? What are we doing here?"

Carson didn't think. His reaction was instinctive, a simple gesture; throwing out one arm to draw his friend into a comforting embrace.

"I don't know," he murmured, to himself and to Rodney as well. "I don't know, lad. Maybe we shouldn't be here at all."

"Tha's not true," Rodney mumbled from his position with his face pressed into Carson's jacket. He was hurting the burns, but the doctor said nothing. "We've saved a lot of people. _They're_ glad we came to Pegasus."

"Speak for yourself," Carson muttered bitterly. "You haven't decimated entire planets."

Rodney pulled himself up, a half-smile tugging his mouth into a crooked grin. "Well there _was_ Doranda..." He saw Carson's expression and hurriedly said "Look, there's at least four people here on this base right now who think you're worth risking their lives for."

"Well they're wrong."

"Hey, _one_ of them happens to be a genius," Rodney said loftily. "I do _not_ get things wrong."

Carson almost smiled. "Well, there _was_ Doranda..."

"Simple mistake. Anyone could have made it."

The smile grew bigger. Nothing had been solved, nothing had really changed... but that didn't seem to matter right now. He could see others approaching; a tall man, a heavier one with thick dreadlocks, and a woman with a kind face.

_People... who think you're worth risking their lives for_

They sat down around him.

"You're our friend, Carson," Teyla said with a steady look. "You are very dear to us."

"I still owe you twice over," Ronon said gruffly. "I'm not letting you leave 'till I've paid both off."

"I wish I could be like you, Carson," Rodney said softly. "I wish I could the sort of person who cared about everyone; even the ones I don't know. Can't see."

John said nothing. He looked over his team, then Carson, and smiled.

After a small, Carson smiled back.

Maybe they had been wrong. But he had been as well. They were stained in the same ways, by intertwined deeds.

"I know," he replied.

And they were his friends. That might not be enough, he knew, but right now it was all that seemed to matter.

So he forgave them.

After all that trouble it was the easiest thing he had ever done.

o.O.o

A few months later a group of shadowy figures flitted in the dusk on a deserted beach not far from Aru-Moenia. It was cradled in an escarpment, half-collapsed, and the pebbles crunched under their feet as they walked to the water's edge. A pair of them stepped into the shallows, and then bent down.

From their arms two dark shapes hardly the size of cats slithered and writhed downwards. In the moonlight their scales shone black, black as obsidian. and they entered the water with barely a ripple.

Because even in endings there are beginnings, and friendship is paid in life.


End file.
